My Favorite Place at School
Is the bathroom.
I draw there, too.
In the extra-wide handicapped stall
where I can rest my head against
the cool maroon tiles and line up
my pens like little soldiers.
It’s quiet in there and peaceful
with a sliver of light
that shines through the window.
It’s okay to be myself
in that handicapped stall,
even if being me feels
sort of like a blank piece of paper.
I don’t have to come up
with any colorful lies in there,
or force a smile until my cheeks hurt,
or roll up my long cotton sleeves,
and show off my scars,
just to fit in.
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If Only
I’d eaten my lunch there yesterday.
In that handicapped stall.
Instead of going to the cafeteria
and sitting at the back table with
all the Rennie wannabes.
Then I wouldn’t have heard how they cut
while their mothers got manicures
and how they burned squares in their skin
using salt and smooth ice.
If only I’d looked the other way
when they took off their bracelets and
lifted the cloth of their tight cotton camis.
Then I wouldn’t have seen
the angry, square welts
or the crisscross of red
that triggered me so bad.
If only I’d put in my earbuds
and cranked up the volume
to drown out the gnats buzzing
cutcutcutcut.
Then maybe,
I could’ve left school
on the 340 bus
instead of in a squad car
wearing zip-tie plastic handcuffs.
If only.
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Oh, and by the Way
You can’t trust anyone.
Especially not guidance counselors.
Like the phony hair flipper who acted
all buddy-buddy in the backseat
of the squad car but then left me
with Creeper in the emergency room.
She made all kinds of promises like:
You can go home as soon as your mom comes.
But I bet she knew all along that I was hosed.
She probably signed those Baker papers herself,
right next to the rent-a-cop who dragged me
out of the bathroom and the prehistoric principal
who couldn’t stop staring at my arm.
So that just goes to show.
Even if someone says things like:
I feel your pain
I’ve been there too.
And even if that someone
wears Aéropostale and still has pimples.
And even if
she puts her arm around you
and makes you feel good for a whole wide minute.
It’s all an act.
She’s full of it.
Just like everyone else.
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One Phone Call a Day
That’s all we get.
My mother sounds annoyed
when she answers and that
makes it almost impossible
to put on my Oscar-winning
two-ounce voice and say:
“I want to come home.”
She doesn’t talk at first,
and I pinch the metal cord
between my fingers
like I’m trying to wring
the answer out of her.
“It’s out of my hands now,” she says.
“There’s a legal process to follow.
A psychological evaluation.
A family meeting.
A 72-hour mandatory hold.”
I wish my mom would say she’s sorry
so I could wrap her words around me
like a towel still warm from the dryer.
But she doesn’t.
Instead, we talk about orange juice pulp,
and scrambled eggs, and how Dad reacted
when she told him I was here.
I can just imagine that conversation.
Mom with her hand on her hip,
elbow out, like a bossy teacher.
Dad on the other end of the line,
shoulders slumped, like Piglet.
“Kenna was caught cutting at school today,” Mom says.
“Which class?” Dad asks.
Then Mom rolls her eyes. Roller-coaster big.
Like Dad’s a complete idiot.
“Not cutting class,” Mom says. “Cutting herself.”
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Sometimes I Wish Dad Wasn’t So Clueless
Then maybe he would’ve noticed
the twisted black hair ties wrapped
around my wrists like bracelets
and the leg warmers that
covered my ankles in June.
And then maybe he would’ve realized
that hair ties and leg warmers aren’t
some new fashion trend
and he would’ve demanded
that I show him all that hidden skin
and chased me up the stairs
when I stomped off screaming
how it was none of his business,
and pounded on my bedroom door
when I slammed it in his face
and ripped it off the hinges
just like Superman
to save me.
I bet I wouldn’t even be here now.
If I had a dad like that.
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Dad Used To Have A Little Superman In Him
Like the year Mom drove to Johns Hopkins
so Avery could visit her dead dad’s family
and talking about a dead dad was so fun
they stayed all summer and never wrote,
which is why my dad decided
to take me and Sean away.
I remember how he would crank
up the engine on this
old, rented motor home
and we’d drive till we burned
up like two tanks of gas,
and we’d pass the RV park
and pull off the highway on impulse
just to follow some dirt road
that led to nowhere.
Then we’d watch like a million identical
stars wink at us from the sky
for finding their secret spot,
and Dad would give us a glass
of bubbly white-grape juice
for pretend champagne toasts,
and he’d do these stupid card tricks
where the ace disappeared
and Sean couldn’t stop laughing.
There was no mother-father fallout
for skipping the five-star hotel
and sleeping on pine needles.
And everything was absolutely perfect
until Dad turned around
and drove us back home.
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That Was the Last Time
I dreamed about Dad being Superman.
Or flying off the top of the Sears Tower.
Or driving an old RV into a brand-new life.
Because somehow I just knew
we would always come back.
No matter what.
And that meant Dad would be Piglet forever,
and I would always be the bottom of Avery’s shoe.
I didn’t realize it back then,
but I guess it’s kind of true,
what that poet said.
How once you lose your dreams,
it’s like a snowstorm rolls in,
even if you live in Florida,
and the fields freeze over,
and you feel like a bird
with broken wings,
until pretty soon
you can’t even
remember
how to
fly.
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At Least Sean Still Has Dreams
He’s gonna be a marine biologist one day.
But he’s not like most eight-year-olds
who want to be a biologist today,
a firefighter tomorrow,
an astronaut the week after that.
Ever since his Cub Scout troop visited
the Tampa Aquarium, he’s been saying
he’s gonna be a biologist and that was
almost two years ago.
Anyway, he’s always talking about
these random deep-sea creatures
he sees on the Discovery Channel,
like the Atolla jellyfish that lives
thousands of feet underwater
in total blackness. But whenever
it wants to, the Atolla can turn its
body into a big blue lightbulb,
and not the Kmart special kind,
but a beautiful, brilliant blue.
Glowing.
Luminous.
Unexpected.
Sean says when it happens,
the whole sea stops to watch,
and God looks down and smiles,
because that jellyfish
just goes to show
there can be light
even in the darkest places.
But what does he know.
He’s only eight.
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Wednesday 11:30 a.m.
I plop down on the couch
to watch a daytime talk show
through that scratched-up Plexiglas.
Donya’s yelling HOOYAH
every five seconds because
there’s this girl on the show
with a coin-round face
and hair the color of pennies,
who just told her boyfriend
she doesn’t love him.
Never did.
Even though he’s the kind of boy
most girls would drool for.
Even though he’s got eyes
like slices of summer sky.
Even though he can sink a free throw
all the way from center court.
None of that can make her love him,
not for all the corn in Indiana,
because she’s in love with someone else.
A girl.
A girl who’s like cinnamon apples.
Spicy and sweet.
“I knew it,” Donya says.
She hops off the couch and struts
around the room with her boobs
flat as pancakes in that ultratight
underarmor sports bra.
“Hooyah.
Hell, yeah!”
But when the girl’s father appears,
Donya starts to grind her teeth
just like she does at night.
“Parents are hazardous to your health,” she says.
She twists her plastic wristband
around and around
until I see the red letters
printed on the underside.
The ones that say suicide watch.
“What are you looking at?” Donya asks.
But before I can answer she’s up in my face.
“I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” she says.
“It was just a buzz gone wrong.
That’s all.”
I nod and tell her that I get it.
That I believe her.
Even though I don’t.
Then we flip through the channels
until that fat Hoosier daddy
is booed off the stage.
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Wednesday After Lunch
I notice a piece of paper on the wall
with those little tear-off tabs
dangling from the bottom.
The paper says:
ARE YOU LOOKING FOR SOMETHING?
TAKE WHAT YOU NEED.
And the tabs say words like:
Love
Acceptance
A second chance
I look around to see if anybody’s watching.
Donya and Jag are arm wrestling.
Skylar’s dumping her uneaten tray.
Nobody’s paying attention.
So I pull off a tab.
It feels strange in my hand.
Oddly heavy.
Like the paper is holding
something bigger than itself.
The same way an acorn
holds a full-grown oak tree
inside its tiny shell.
I want to put it in my pocket.
But then I stop and think.
What if this idea sprouts?
What if it gets pink and purple with promise
but instead of growing strong like an oak tree
it just flops over and dies like my coleus plant
in the first grade and leaves me with
nothing but a dead word
and a Styrofoam cup filled with dirt?
Screw that.
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Which One Did You Pick?
Skylar flits over and points
at the frayed edges of paper
where three tabs are missing.
“I picked will power,” she volunteers.
“And discipline.
And self-control.”
Her arm is outstretched and for the first time
I can see her wormy scars close up.
They look like pink leeches sucking on her skin.
I’ll never get like that, I think.
My cuts are so much prettier.
Thin as spider silk.
Laced around my wrists like bracelets.
In a week they’ll start to heal
and I’ll watch as they fade
from rubies,
to ripples,
to smooth opal skin.
When they’re gone,
I know I’ll miss them.
I wonder if Skylar ever had cuts like that.
Pretty as pink pearls.
Before the leeches came.
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She Notices Me Staring
I look away
but not fast enough
and her fragile smile melts.
“Sorry,” I say.
“I’ve just never seen sc
ars
like that before.”
She studies me.
Traces a finger across her arm.
Tells me they’re her babies.
She’s even got names for them.
Fat baby.
Ugly baby.
Lonely baby.
Failed- a-test baby.
Dissed-at-school baby.
Argued-with-mother baby.
Why-don’t-you-just-kill-yourself baby.
My cuts don’t have names like that.
But if I gave them names, they’d all be Rennie.
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Rennie
Where do I begin?
I guess we met around
the second week of sixth grade.
Right about the time I was discovering
that in middle school there’s no such thing
as being a wallflower.
You’re either popular or ridiculed.
Accepted or abandoned.
Worshiped or crucified.
There’s no in-between.
No place for invisible.
Nowhere to hide.
I was a little unprepared for that,
having been a houseplant all my life.
Comfortably nonexistent.
But Rennie took me in.
Introduced me to the black-booted,
purple-haired dress-code violators
who would one day be
the Sisters of the Broken Glass.
And for the first time,
I belonged to something.
was seen as someone.
was popular somehow.
I belonged . . .
Even though I knew that meant
I’d have to cut too.
Sometime.
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Six Months Later
Elbow on the sink.
Right hand trembling.
Drag–––––the–––––glass–––––across–––––my–––––wrist–––––
chalky–––––dotted–––––lines–––––
Kiss of Broken Glass Page 3