Thump-thump.
Thump-thump.
Thump-thump.
Then the horse begins to run.
A great Goliath gallop
that shakes the ground
and spits mud in every direction.
I know what’s coming next,
even before the white flesh
tears across the barbs.
I hear a voice screaming in my head:
Wake up.
Wake up.
Just drop the freaking spoon already!
Then the dream ends.
Just like that.
I’m sitting on the edge of my bed.
Catching my breath.
Feeling as psycho as Dalí.
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Dreams Are Just a Body’s Way of Sorting Things Out
That’s what Ding Dong says.
I sit at the night-nurse station
while she rifles through my chart
checking to see if Mom authorized
any medication like sleeping pills.
Fat chance of that.
But I let Ding Dong search anyway,
digging through random papers,
jabbering away.
“Did you have one a them falling-down dreams?
Then you’re probably just feeling helpless. That’s all.
Or maybe you dreamed about being naked.
Was that it? You don’t have to hide it, girl.
That doesn’t mean nothing bad. You’re just shy.”
She pauses and stares at me hard.
Then shivers shimmy across her shoulders.
“I think you had one of them ugly dreams.
Where your teeth were falling out.”
That one makes me smile
and I think about telling her
I had a whole set of snaggleteeth
that wiggled like worms
right out of my mouth,
because that kind of dream
might get her dreads in a wad,
and then maybe she’d give me the meds
without my mother’s precious signature.
But I don’t say a word.
Because I’m afraid if I open my mouth
the white horse might gallop out instead.
So I go back to bed pill-less and prickly,
all twisted up by the last thing she said:
“Trust me, girl. Whatever it was,
that dream is tellin’ you something.”
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Thursday 7:16 a.m.
Breakfast on the second day.
I see a butterfly on Skylar’s arm,
a swallowtail with swooping swirls
and polka-dot wings.
She drew it herself with a black Sharpie.
“For the Butterfly Project,” she says.
Then she tells me how it works.
First, you feel the urge to cut,
but instead of picking up the blade
you pick up a pen
and draw a butterfly
on your arm
or your ankle
or anywhere you want.
It doesn’t really matter
as long as it’s on your body.
Then you name it for someone special.
That’s what brings the butterfly to life.
So now you’ve got this living, breathing ink
on your forearm or by your belly button
or the dimple behind your knee,
and the butterfly is flapping its wonderful wings
while you take algebra tests and clean your room
and eat cold chicken nuggets in the cafeteria.
And because you love it so much
you stay away from the blade
because that’s the only way
to save your swallowtail’s life.
You can’t wash it off either.
The butterfly has to fade on its own.
Because if you wash it off in the sink
or cut before the ink fades naturally,
then your butterfly dies.
Those are the rules.
Sick, huh?
But Skylar’s so sure it’ll work,
she floats away from the table
like she’s a butterfly herself.
I don’t know if I should feel
sorry for her
for putting so much faith
in permanent marker
or if I should feel
just a teeny bit good inside
because Skylar named her butterfly
for me.
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Skylar’s Nervous Breakdown
It’s all Bullhorn’s fault.
She never should’ve said that
Skylar’s gonna become another
Teenage Statistic if she doesn’t
start seeing herself for
the Beautiful Person that she is.
Then Donya wouldn’t have said,
“Oh yeah, twigs are soooo hot.”
And Jag wouldn’t have laughed
until chocolate milk spurted out his nose.
And Skylar wouldn’t have bolted
down the hallway screaming,
“Lemmeout! Lemmeout!”
And I wouldn’t have sat there
with my mouth open
wishing I’d said thank you
for the butterfly.
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There’s So Much Drama
My mother thinks it’s all because
of the hormones in cow’s milk
making girls hit puberty way too soon.
And not just the early bloomers.
A whole generation of twelve-year-olds
budding in their teeny-weeny bikinis
and sprouting armpit hair
before their frontal lobes
have a chance to catch up.
But what does she know?
My mother also thinks that margarine
is one molecule away from plastic
and that fried food will make
her hair turn gray.
That’s whacked.
But sometimes I wish she was right,
because to tell you the truth,
I’d give up dairy products all together
if it would make all the drama go away.
And Skylar come back.
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Before Group Therapy
I’m staring at Jag’s
perfect pecs,
his awesome abs,
his flawless face
when Roger points
at sneakers propped
on Skylar’s empty seat
and says,
“Take them off.”
And then . . .
Plop.
Plop.
I’m staring at Jag’s
pissed and perfect feet.
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The Three C’s of Addiction
Why does Roger look at me like that?
I’ve never soaked gummy bears in vodka
or snuck off campus to get high at lunch,
and just because I smoked pot
one time with Rennie,
that d
oesn’t mean
I’m addicted.
But Roger says
if you crave something
and lose control
and keep doing it
over and over
despite the consequences,
then you’re addicted.
Yeah?
So what?
Why does he keep looking at me like that?
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What I Find in Skylar’s Empty Room
Five carrot sticks she pretended to eat at lunch.
Four clumps of hair that brushed right off her head.
Three unopened letters.
Two bloody tissues.
And a poem she wrote today—
What the Blade Says
I am the shadow
that waits in dark places,
silent and patient,
to follow you home.
I am the tiger
that eagerly chases,
racing and running,
wherever you roam.
I am the hunger
that feeds on your madness,
biting and clawing,
to swallow you whole.
I am the silver
that soaks up your sadness,
body and spirit
and all of your soul.
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The Rubber Room
Donya finds me in Skylar’s room
and sees the bloody tissues in the trash.
She says she knows exactly what that
means and she pulls me out of the room.
She points down this long narrow hall,
past the rec room and the emergency exit,
to a thick black door with a tiny slit of a window.
I tell Donya we shouldn’t go,
not because the room is restricted
but because if Skylar is in there
I don’t want to see her,
not like that.
But Donya makes me go.
Well, not exactly makes me.
I mean, it’s not like she drags
me by the hair. But she has this way
of making you think that not doing
something is way worse than doing it,
no matter how bad that something seems.
Sort of like Rennie.
So we slip past Bullhorn
on our rubber-soled socks
and we figure we’ve got like
two and a half minutes until
Bullhorn discovers that we’re gone.
But even before we get to the door
I hear this sound that makes me
want to turn around again.
I wouldn’t call in crying exactly.
It’s more high pitched than that,
like a kitten.
Donya pushes me to the window.
This time with more than her words.
“Is she in there?”
The window is smudged and the room gray
so I can’t make anything out at first,
except for how the walls look like
they’re covered in mattresses,
and the floor is sort of spongy.
But then I see something
in the far back corner,
and I feel my ears get hot
like they always do when I’m mad.
“Is it her?”
“See for yourself,” I say.
Then I brush past Donya
pissed at her for making me look,
because that’s the kind of picture
I’ll never get out of my head.
That poor little pencil stabber.
He looks so much like Sean.
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I Need to Chill
So I wedge myself by the window and I watch
garbage men heaving green plastic cans,
and a man running to catch the bus,
and a woman walking her mop dog,
and wrapping up its poop like a present.
It’s like there are two worlds now.
The In Here.
And the Out There.
The suspended animation.
And the full speed ahead.
And suddenly I’m desperate
to know what Rennie’s doing.
In the Out There.
Right now.
This very minute.
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My One Phone Call
It feels like a century since I saw Rennie
through that dirty squad-car window,
looking sort of shocked and mad,
like someone had splashed water in her face.
She must’ve been really pissed at the cop.
I drum my fingers on the counter
as the phone rings five times.
Come on. Come on.
I know you’re in art class.
Just pick up already.
And then I hear her.
“This better be good.”
Her words are like punches
knocking the breath out of me.
I want her to say:
OMG! Are you okay?
This is sooooo unfair!
Are they gonna let you out soon?
Everybody misses you like crazy.
But something’s off.
“I just wanted to talk,” I say.
“So talk,” she answers.
I hear water running and someone giggling
in the background. Then Rennie sighs,
like she’s bored with me already.
“Look. The school’s on high alert,” she says.
“A message went home telling parents to be
on guard for the Top Ten Signs of Self-Harm
and now every mom in Manatee County
is searching for scissors under the bed
and taking inventory of their Band-Aid boxes.”
I hear the phone changing hands
and another voice jumps on the line.
“You can’t even get a plastic knife
in the cafeteria thanks to you.”
And right away I’m sick to my stomach
because I know who it is. That growly,
annoying, gag-me voice could only be
coming from one person.
And that’s Tara.
Yeah.
The Two Face.
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Shower Escape
All I want is scalding water
to sear down my spine
like a hot blade,
to blister my back,
to char my chest,
to melt me to pieces
so I can dissolve down the drain,
evaporate into steam,
and disappear.
That would feel good right now.
That would make sense.
But all I can find is one button,
no hot or cold knob,
no temperature dial,
just a single silver square
that says On/Off
like a light switch,
and when I press it
the drops that spill
like lukewarm milk
aren’t even as hot as my tears.
I feel my lips start to quiver,
and my shoulders shake.
Then my heart splits open
/> and the words tumble out
like bricks.
“How could Rennie say that?
I thought she was my friend.
My sister.”
But nobody answers.
Not even my own echo.
The shower shuts off automatically,
and I’m still sobbing, watching
ribbons of water slide down my skin.
The drops glance over the scars on my hips,
and ricochet past the cuts on my thighs,
and bounce off the red flippy lines on my ankles
like balls in a pinball machine.
I’m an outcast,
a loser,
a nothing.
I step out of the shower and drag
the towel across my body, but
I can’t look at myself anymore,
because every inch of rejected skin
reminds me of the awful truth:
Now I have more scars than friends.
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All I Want To Do
Is sleep and sleep and
sleepandsleepandsleepand
sleepandsleepandsleepand
sleepandsleepandsleepand
sleepandsleepandsleepand
sleepandsleepandsleepand
sleepandsleepandsleepand
sleepandsleepandsleepand
sleepandsleepandsleepand
sleepandsleepandsleep . . .
But I’m the kind of tired
that sleeping doesn’t fix.
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Ten Things Rennie Never Told Me
That cuts multiply like freaking rabbits.
That no skin is sacred.
That hugs hurt.
That becoming a pathological liar is a requirement.
That guilt feels like being buried alive.
That long sleeves ride up at the worst possible moment.
That being called emo sucks.
That cutting can get you Baker Acted in Florida.
That people are disposable.
And that one day, she’d get rid of me.
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Kiss of Broken Glass Page 6