Kiss of Broken Glass
Page 8
He skates over every inch of awkward silence
telling me how he kickflips and ollies and caspers
as good as Tony Hawk. And even though I’d trip
just looking at a skateboard, Jag makes me feel like
I’m right there with him, sliding and grinding down
ledges and rails.
“It’s dangerous,” he says. “That’s why I like it.”
Then he raises his shirt and shows me a patch
of road rash chaffed across his ribs. But when he
sees my eyes wander to the small red-brown circles
singed on his side, he covers up again.
“They’re old,” he says. “Cigarette burns.”
He wrings his hands and looks at the clock,
and I can tell he thinks I’m judging him,
like self-harm is some kind of girl problem,
and any boy who would snuff out cigs on his
own skin must be weak or wimpy or worse.
Every brain cell in my head is screaming out
how wrong he is, that I don’t think that at all,
but I’m stuck in the vacuum bag without an
ounce of oxygen and it takes everything I have
just to squeak out two tiny words.
“It’s okay,” I say.
The room is dead still. And I’m worried that
I hurt him without even meaning to.
But then Jag smiles and runs his hand
through his hair and starts telling me about
this electric blue RipStik he’s gonna
buy when he gets out of here.
And I feel this huge rush of relief.
I guess sometimes
two words
are just enough.
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Skylar’s Being Transferred
Yeah.
Right now.
At 6:30 p.m.
When I should be pulling her aside
and telling her about my amazing,
wordless conversation with Jag.
But she has to go.
Just like that.
They’re taking her to a long term
treatment center because Attaboys
doesn’t actually treat anybody.
Unless you count the drive-by pep talks
and a few minutes with a jelly jar.
They’re just a stabilization facility,
kind of like a drunk tank for psychos
where they wait to see if you sober up
and get your head on straight.
But if you don’t stabilize,
if you’re still a danger to self or others,
if you decide to rip your arm up
with a tape dispenser,
well then that’s it,
you’re gonna get committed to a place
where there’s even more chicken wire
in the window glass than here.
Before she leaves,
Skylar says good-bye
to everybody one by one,
and she saves me for last.
“I’m sorry you have to go,” I say.
“I need to,” she answers. “So I can get better.”
And this time she seems sure of it.
I think about her telling me how killing
my butterfly might’ve saved her and
how admitting that she was addicted
felt like a huge first step.
I still can’t believe she told
the Pomeranian of all people.
But Skylar insists it was
the right thing to do.
“It feels like such a weight off,” she says.
She rests her cheek on my shoulder
and gives me an armless hug,
so we don’t hurt each other.
Then she slips me a piece of paper.
“I even wrote it down.
So I’d never forget how bad it got.
It’s kind of like a confession.”
When Skylar walks out,
she’s smiling and waving,
tracing infinity signs in the air
with a feathery finger.
Friends forever.
I want to run after her
and get her phone number
even though that’s against the rules.
But before I can move my feet
or swallow the lump in my throat,
the double doors shut and Skylar’s gone.
Just like that robin in the sky.
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Skylar’s Confession
I wait a long time before I open it,
maybe because I’m afraid that
Skylar’s words will be like a mirror.
I might see myself in them.
When I unfold the paper,
I feel my chest tighten up
like a charley horse in my heart,
but I can’t stop thinking about
how Skylar looked when she left,
with her wide smile and her
infinitely happy hands.
So I force myself to read the poem
because I want to see how heavy
this weight must’ve been. How
getting it off her chest could make
her float like a feather.
And I just gotta say,
it was pretty freaking heavy.
This is what she wrote:
I made the first cut razor thin,
a gentle kiss on virgin skin,
then traded nights of peaceful sleep
for kisses that grew dark and deep,
until the slices on my thighs
soon withered hearts of butterflies,
and now there’s nothing left but this—
my aching for that empty kiss.
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There’s a Battle Going On inside My Head
On one side there’s Skylar,
putting the mirror in my hand,
telling me to take a real good look at myself.
On the other side there’s Rennie
and all the Sisters of the Broken Glass,
breaking the mirror and handing me the sharpest piece.
And Skylar is saying:
Stay strong.
Keep fighting.
Just admit you need help.
But Rennie is saying:
Have fun.
Feel good.
There’s nothing to admit.
And even though Skylar’s a two-ounce Tweety Bird
and Rennie’s a ten-foot, spider-legged giant,
they start to go at it, beak against claws,
and there’s no telling who’s gonna win.
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Before Bed, I Make Two Lists
I figure the first list is going to be the longest
since that’s where I’m writing all the facts
that prove I’m not really addicted to cutting.
The second list is supposed to be short.
With the one or two things I hate about it.
Like the lying part.
And the laundry stains.
But that’s not exactly how it turns out.
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Five Facts that Prove I’m Not Addicted
1. I don’t do it every day.
2. I can stop at just one cut.
3. I’ve never tried crazy places like my feet.
4. I don’t go very deep.
5. I quit once. For the whole summer!
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Five Reasons That’s Total Bullshit
It’s all I think about.
It’s all I think about.
It’s all I think about.
It’s all I think about.
Even in my dreams.
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First Prayer in Forever
I can’t sleep thinking about those
stupid lists and I’m getting sick
of counting cracks in the wall.
So I start thinking about what
Jag said the other day.
How God could be whoever
I understand Him to be.
That doesn’t seem as pushy as I
remembered from my old church
with those stiff wooden pews
and all that Our Father and Kingdom Come crap.
It seems sorta . . . I don’t know . . . inviting.
So I figure, what the hell. Maybe I should pray.
What’s the worst that could happen?
Who knows? It might even put me to sleep.
So I do that sign of the cross thing.
Backward probably. Then I close my eyes
and sort of talk in my head. Like
Hey God.
It’s Kenna.
Remember me?
I’m stuck here
in this psycho ward.
But you already know that.
Anyway . . .
You’re probably pissed at me
for the whole cutting thing
because of the Bible business
that says how my body’s supposed
to be a temple and all.
But I don’t feel like a temple.
I feel like a shack.
And here’s the thing.
Once I get out of here,
there’s gonna be triggers
around every corner,
and blades in my purse,
and voices in my head
telling me to use them.
And I’m sorry to say this,
but I probably will.
That’s just the way it is.
I don’t feel like I have a choice,
or another road to take, or whatever.
And don’t worry.
I don’t expect you to fix me.
But I was sort of thinking maybe
you could do some of that God stuff,
with your hands on my head or whatever,
and just make the pain a little looser,
so it doesn’t always feel like a jacket
wrapped around me so tight.
And maybe you could do that for Skylar, too.
That would be good.
Then I try to remember how
prayers are supposed to end,
with lay me down to sleep,
and souls to keep, and all that
other nursery rhyme stuff,
but that doesn’t seem to fit.
So finally, I just say Thanks, God,
and I roll over on my pillow.
Then, the strangest thing happens.
I don’t see angels or hear harps
or feel the hand of God
slipping into my life
just when I need him.
The lightbulb doesn’t flicker
and Colin Krusher doesn’t materialize
through the air duct (dammit).
It’s nothing like that.
It’s way more subtle.
And I’m sure some people
would say it’s all in my head.
But all I can say is that it does feel
like my troubles are looser somehow,
like the jacket isn’t zipped
to my chin anymore.
And it’s not like I jump
up and down on the bed yelling,
Holy crap!
It worked.
But I say it to myself.
Real quiet.
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My Dream on the Third Night
So take a guess where I am.
Dark country road.
Electric purple sky.
Yada yada yada.
And here comes that freaking white horse.
Only this time, she’s sort of still.
Like she’s thinking about something.
And I’m calm too, scanning the road.
Waiting for somebody.
And I know they’re coming
because I feel so inflated,
it’s like I’m walking on helium.
Then Jag rolls up on his RipStik
and I can tell right away,
he’s the one I’ve been waiting for,
because my heart floats even higher
and we seem to talk without words.
He sees a patch of flowers by the road,
white fairy orchids growing wild,
and he smiles that crooked smile
and leans to pick one for me.
And then, here’s where the dream goes to shit.
When Jag stands back up,
there’s a sea of spiders at his feet,
so many spiders that it looks like
the ground is moving.
And in fact, the ground is moving.
It’s opening up like the mouth of a sinkhole
and Jag is losing his footing and spiraling in,
and the last thing I see before it swallows him up,
are the five pointed petals of white fairy orchid
spilling to the ground like falling stars.
The horse is going ballistic now.
She’s bucking and snorting and
making all kinds of terrible sounds
that should never come out of an animal.
She rears away from the fence again and again,
but in the end she tears her flesh across the barbs.
I run to her and throw my arms around her neck.
I try to stop the bleeding but the harder I squeeze,
the more the blood flows. It’s like a stream spilling
down the horse’s shoulders, splashing to the earth.
I pull off my jacket and press the cloth against her skin.
I can hear her heavy breath and feel her deep, dark pulse
throbbing beneath my fingers. Like we’re connected.
Thump-thump.
Thump-thump.
Thump-thump.
Then I feel something shift.
And suddenly I’m not holding the horse anymore.
I look down only to discover that I’m
pressing the jacket against my own arm,
feeling the beat of my own pulse,
watching the cloth turn red,
under the light of the moon.
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I Wake Up
So that’s it?
That’s what the dream means?
I’m the freaking horse?
I storm out of the bedroom and
head straight to Ding Dong’s desk.
“Did you dream about them teeth again?” she asks.
I shake my head and start ranting.
This time I don’t hold anything back.
Not one single detail.
I figure Ding Dong’s going to make a big deal
> about all the dark images like the black sky
and lightning and how that probably means
I’m on some kind of evil path. Or maybe
she’s gonna key in on Rennie and the spiders
and say that means I’m caught in a web.
But Ding Dong doesn’t seem to care
about any of that. All she wants to know
is what the horse is doing.
The bucking.
The kicking.
The flailing.
The fury.
Ding Dong takes in all in, studying me with her dark eyes,
and I wait for her big dream interpretation to ramble out.
But in the end, she only has one thing to say:
“Seems to me, if you are that horse,
you’re tryin’ awfully hard to fight that fence.”
And that’s all I can think about for the rest of the night.
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Friday 8 a.m.
Donya’s packing up.
Her 72 hours were officially over last night
but her mom works second shift at a factory,
soldering circuit boards, and Donya says
the supervisor’s a real prick and wouldn’t
let her mom off. So she’s coming today instead.
I don’t ask Donya about her dad.
It feels weird.
How I know so many things about Donya,
but I don’t really know anything at all.
Like I know
that when Donya’s tense she grinds her teeth,
and that her hair color isn’t permanent
because she leaves purple streaks in the sink,
and that there really was a girl at Chicory’s
because Donya cries about it in her sleep.
I know all those inside-out, private little things.
But I don’t even know Donya’s last name
or where she lives, or goes to school,
or if that buzz-gone-wrong
was really something more.
And I still don’t know what to expect from her.
Not from one minute to the next.
Which is why I’m only half surprised
when she takes the silver stud out of her tongue.
“Going away present,” she says.
She can tell I’m trying to puzzle it out,