stabbed your teacher, kid.
But I sure hope you got her good.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
It’s Almost Time
I’m staring out the window.
Tapping on the glass.
Trying to remember the last time
I actually wanted to see my mother.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Nope.
Nada.
Nothing’s coming.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Visiting Hour
Okay.
Maybe I shouldn’t have rolled my eyes
at the very first question Mom asked.
But—”how’s the food?”
Like I’m at summer camp?
Please!
And now Mom’s going through that whole
breathe-deep-and-count-to-ten crap
like it says to do in the tough-love book
she always forgets in the bathroom.
Before long, she starts quoting chapter three:
“Blahblahblahblahblahblahblah . . .”
And then there it is:
Bad choices.
I knew she would say it.
That’s the book’s favorite phrase.
She grits it between her teeth
like a fat wad of bubble gum
so the other words won’t slip out.
The ones she really wants to say.
Like how I’m such a huge disappointment
and why can’t I be more like my sister?
I want to tell her,
Hey Mom, I’ve got news for you:
A hard-boiled egg instead of chocolate cake?
(That’s a bad choice.)
Vampire Diaries instead of Supernatural?
(Bad choice.)
Plastic instead of paper?
(Bad choice.)
But shredding your arm with a razor blade
and getting Baker Acted like a psycho?
That’s not a bad choice, Mom.
That’s a freaking disaster!
But just when I’m about
to go off on her, I start to feel it.
The way my cuts tighten up
like Grandma’s arthritic fingers
right before a storm.
I guess I should’ve mentioned
how my scars can tell the weather.
Only not hurricanes or tornadoes.
More like the emotional weather.
Like when Mom’s waterworks
are about to spill.
So even before it happens,
I know her lips are gonna quiver
and the creases on her forehead
are getting ready to bunch up.
And then out comes the downpour.
A torrential ten-Kleenex typhoon.
Luckily her crying sort of waters down
the rest of the tough-love words:
Foolish.
Dangerous.
Serious consequences.
After a while, the storm blows over.
Mom’s hands puddle in her lap
and her head droops like a branch
still heavy with rain.
Great.
Now I’m gonna have to hug her and shit.
And when I do, she’s probably gonna
whisper that question in my ear.
The one I can’t answer.
Why, Kenna? Why?
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Deep, Dark Secret
It would be so much easier if I had one.
Like if I thought I caused
my brother’s illness,
my boyfriend’s suicide,
my parent’s death.
Like if I had
an alcoholic father,
a bipolar mother,
a secret abortion.
Like if I’d been
molested,
abused,
stalked.
Like just about ANYTHING!
Then maybe this would make more sense
and I could answer the question—
Why?
But here’s the thing.
I don’t have any deep, dark secrets.
Not like that anyway.
My life’s not some riveting novel
where you rush through the pages
to get to the end and find out
what horrific, repressed memory
caused me to cut.
The fact is,
I’ve had a pretty ordinary childhood.
Boring? (Yes.)
Predictable? (Yes.)
But stitch-worthy? (No.)
So I guess that brings me to the real secret.
The deepest, darkest kind there is.
I’ve been cutting for absolutely no reason at all.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
And That Makes It a Billion Times Worse
Because that means I’m just a copycutter.
A follower who did it to fit in.
And now I can’t stop.
I bet if my IQ was even
a pimple-bump above average,
I would’ve thought of that
before I made the first cut.
But I didn’t think.
About anything.
Except—
my perpetually perfect sister
my Judge Judy mother
my Piglet father
my no-sprinkles future
my incurable case of Ordinary
the sting of being alone
and the rush of being accepted.
On second thought,
maybe it’s the little problems
that pile up the worst.
Deeper and darker.
One after another.
Until there’s no light at all.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
But at Least I’m Not an Idiot
Like Tara who #cut4sid.
That all started because some troll
tweeted about how Sid Riff
was smoking pot instead of
recording albums like a hottie should,
and some fans decided to cut themselves
and post pictures to show Sid how sad they were
that he was turning into a bad person
and making their whole lives a lie.
24 hours
30,000 messages
and 23 million impressions later,
Tara came to school with the words
cut4sid carved into her thigh
and a smile as wide as Texas
because she’d been retweeted
4,962 times.
It was the highlight of her year.
And the funny thing is,
she doesn’t even like Sid Riff.
But that’s the kind of thing
competitive cutters do.
And that’s exactly what my mother
would never understand.
How cutting’s everywhere now.
On a whole new level.
Not just in the closet.
Sometimes people do it because
of their deep, dark secrets,
or to fit in with friends,
or to piss off parents,
or to be razor rock-stars.
But who cares why we do it.
It’s a stupid question.
So when my
mother asks,
I don’t even answer.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
By the Time My Mother Leaves
The urge to cut is so strong
it feels like Saran Wrap around my brain.
No other thoughts getting in or out.
If I was at home right now
I’d bolt up the stairs,
three at a time,
not looking back,
until I got to the bathroom,
where I’d lock the door,
turn on the shower,
hover over the sink and
slice,
slice,
slice.
God I miss that feeling!
The rush.
The calm.
The way the blood pools warm at first
then cools like morning dew on slivered skin.
The sway.
The swirl.
The way the crimson dances ‘round the bowl
then trickles tiny teardrops down the drain.
The crimp.
The curl.
The sound Saran Wrap makes as it unsticks
and finally lets the air back to my brain.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Skylar Notices Me
“Try this instead,” she says.
And then she shows me how to snap
a rubber band against my wrist.
It’s not as good as cutting.
But somehow the steady rubber sting
settles down my nerves enough to draw.
I look at my limp, leaking girl
lying worthless on the paper.
She deserves hands, I think.
To wave hello.
To catch bouquets.
To squeeze palm to palm.
Not hands to hold a blade.
But I can’t seem to draw them right.
They’re lifeless, unnatural, cold.
They make me want to tear the paper up.
So I sketch the moon instead.
Moons are easy.
A white, unblinking eye
watching through the window.
Like a god who sees bad things
happening to good people every day
but doesn’t even care.
Skylar glances at my drawing.
She’s writing a poem,
counting syllables on her fingers
one by one.
Skylar thinks God does care.
Even when it doesn’t feel like it.
And she’s pretty sure that one day
God will lift all the pain right off her
and toss it aside like an old jacket.
But for now, she’s wearing it tight.
Zipped up to the chin.
Just like me.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Skylar Shows Me Her Poem
Silent sobbing. No one sees.
Weeping like the willow trees.
Feel my heart about to pop.
Need to make the aching stop.
See moon’s shimmer softly pass.
On the shards of broken glass.
It’s an ekphrastic poem.
That’s what Skylar calls it.
She says that means the poem
was inspired by a piece of artwork.
My artwork.
I tell her that ekphrastic
is the dumbest word I’ve ever heard.
It doesn’t sound very poetic to me.
More like a hairball that the cat coughed up.
But her words are poetic.
Beautiful.
Powerful.
Painful.
Like she cut out a piece of herself
and left it lying there on the paper,
just so I’d know—
I’m
not
alone.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Jag is Sitting on the Windowsill Nearby
He’s staring at the moon.
Thousands of miles from here.
I wonder if he’s thinking about
the three goals he wrote for Roger’s exercise:
* Get out of here without the family meeting.
* Get out of here without the family meeting.
* Get out of here without the family meeting.
But the sad thing is nobody gets out
of here without that almighty meeting.
Especially when decking your dad
is what got you here in the first place.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Donya’s Staring at the Moon Too
But she doesn’t call it the moon.
She calls it Lunabella
because that sounds like
a sexy-hot girl who would
meet her at Chicory’s
and drink café mochas
until they were both
as happy as exclamation points,
and they’d hold hands
on top of the table
not just underneath
even when Donya’s
stupid parental unit
steamed in
hotter than coffee
ranting about how two girls
holding hands was a sin.
I ask Donya if that really happened.
But she doesn’t answer.
Instead she just says that Skylar
can tell her so-called God
to shove His so-called plans
and stop messing up
every minute of
her so-called life!
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Jag Hops off the Window Sill
“My father’s Higher Power was a lightbulb,” he says.
“A 60-watt incandescent.”
Jag tells us how he used to go to Al-Anon meetings
before his father drank up all their savings
and started talking with his fists.
“AA lets you believe God can be anything or anyone,” he says.
“Like God can be Buddha or a ceiling tile or even a lightbulb.
It doesn’t really matter. As long as you believe that something
is your Higher Power.
I ask Jag if AA would let Colin Krusher be God.
“I know Colin is more like a fallen TV angel, “ I say.
“But he’s been resurrected four times on my favorite show
and he’s the only angel who’s lasted through series nine
so that pretty much makes him immortal, if you ask me.
Plus, in real life, Colin founded a charity that gives away shoes
and umbrellas and mattresses to old people who haven’t
had a new bed in like half a century.
So Colin deserves to be God way more than a 60-watt.”
Jag nods and looks at the floor.
“Yeah. I guess Colin could be God,” he says.
“But just so you know,
that lightbulb thing
didn’t turn out too good for my dad.”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
Lights Out
Donya’s grinding her teeth again.
&n
bsp; Like she’s mad at half the world.
I bet my dad doesn’t have to
listen to a racket like this
when he’s at the Hyatt
or the Holiday Inn
a thousand miles
away from home.
I bet he props himself up
on fluffy hypoallergenic pillows
and drinks four-dollar bottled waters
and watches the 10-p.m. news
with all the comings and goings
of some random city.
And even though he’ll only
stay there a day, maybe two,
I bet Dad cares more
about what’s happening
in De Kalb, Illinois,
or Madison, Wisconsin,
than he cares about
what’s happening
to me.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
My Dream on the Second Night
I’m on that dark country road again
where the sky is purple
and the air is so full of static
the hairs rise up on my arms.
Then I see that horse.
The gruesome, white, wild-eyed horse.
Flaring her nostrils.
Rearing her head.
Like a warning.
I want to bolt back into consciousness.
But right away I can tell
it’s one of those hosed dreams
where you can’t wake yourself up
no matter how hard you try.
I’m trapped.
Immobile.
Suffocating.
But then I hear Rennie’s voice:
Just one cut and you can breathe.
When she appears,
she’s ten feet tall.
On freaky spider legs
just like the ones in Dalí’s paintings.
And I figure that right about now
Dali would probably drop the spoon,
wake himself up,
and paint some freaky clocks.
But I’m stuck watching Rennie
as she mounts the horse
and wraps her legs around its belly.
When she grabs its mane, the horse bucks and flails,
and I feel my heart thud like a nine-pound hammer.
Kiss of Broken Glass Page 5