we grew up together:
postcards for parents
and cigarettes
for fireplaces
we were best friends.
year twelve
//september//||||
“welcome back, boys and girls.”
knees together. shoulders back. chins up.
welcome back, she means, to the routine of
eight am target practice,
courtesy of the handbook.
they get to dolly first
“immaculate as always, dolores. how is your father?”
then hermia
“i see you failed to purchase proper burgundy over the summer”
i hold my breath
“mary dear, my how you’ve grown”
and let it out as they move onto
“good heavens, alice, put on some clothes.”
she rolls her eyes.
in the bathroom i tie my shoes
to a soundtrack of gagging
and spray perfume down the toilet
when she’s finished.
she locks our pinkies
like we’re back in year nine
don’t tell dolly
//october//||||
the lower the sun sets
the more we’re in dolly’s room
she brews coffee in her contraband *** --
she won’t smoke with us, but coffee
is worth breaking rules for --
and tucks us into her bed
to tell us fairytales
yet somehow, it always ends up being hers
she talks about him
like prince charming
like he doesn’t have
a face of zits and
a weird haircut
like she can see
a future in him
alice gags under the covers
this time not out of self-hate
but disgust
and dolly laughs like a grown up
you’ll understand one day.
she does a little spin into her bathroom
to fix her makeup; “seeing him later”
and alice whispers
“if she weren’t dolly
i’d swear she was on the hard stuff”
i find myself trying to remember what it’s like
to be so happy
i could pass a drug test.
//november//|||
we’re smoking by the pier when it happens
with some sad boys
hermia seduced for cigarettes
she smokes the prettiest
and we’re convinced she doesn’t swallow
but a cigarette is a cigarette
alice always smokes like its her last
and i guess the boys like the way
she lights theirs for them
i’m not much of a smoker
but a boy from alice’s algebra class --
math for future ivy dropouts, as she likes to call it --
lights one for me anyway
and tells me his name
but both are forgotten within minutes
partially due
to my adhd [diagnosed by alice]
and partially due
to the security guard that rounds the corner
algebra snuffs our cigs and alice’s clan snuffs theirs,
but hermia isn’t so lucky
after a streaking incident last year
she’s been convinced they’re out to get her
and i guess she was right.
we offer her the coffee ***
as a goodbye present
but she pierces our ears instead --
what she promised to do for christmas --
and tells us where she hid
her lighter.
//december//|||
it’s just alice and i over break
since dolly has family
that actually comes home for holidays
i get a card from my parents
and alice doesn’t get anything
but when we walk into town
she treats herself to some hair dye
after all, it’s a five-fingered sale
my heart doesn’t beat in my chest
when we pass the security cameras
but i find myself wishing it did
wishing i remembered
guilt
an hour later
alice rinses the dye out
and emerges from the shower
the stretch marks on her legs
reminding me why
i let myself go numb
//january//|||
it’s new years and
we’re in somebody’s dorm room
watching fireworks on tv
everyone’s paired up;
dolly with her prince
alice with the same dude
hermia slept with,
rubber in his pockets
and me
with the sad boy from the pier
laying in the dark
he smells like the boy i lost it to
and i want to be sick
but when he kisses me at 12
i let him
some ******* pulls out a sparkler
i hear the fire alarm
then suddenly we’re drenched and
screaming, wet rats in the street
they call roll
no dolly
no prince
we wait for her in her room
alice falls asleep
until she comes in sobbing
a mess of
it was perfect
until the fire alarm went off
and
they’re shipping me out tomorrow
and, the quietest
he says there’s no point
in long distance.
//february//||
there’s snow up to the windowpanes
and everybody’s depressed
alice stays in my room
and they let her
knowing she has a history
when it comes to february’s
i.e. if they make her get out of bed
she’ll call her father
nobody has to know
that she lost her phone
in the snow last week
or that
even if she hadn’t
he hasn’t picked up
in months.
she likes to talk to boys instead
when she’s lucid
she brushes her hair
and opens the window
and hollers back at them
when they whistle
nobody has to know
she’s wearing her pajamas.
//march//||
when the sun comes out, so does she
“i’m going for a walk”
she says, in her pajamas
she borrows my phone to make a call
but that’s the morning
and soon it’s noon
and i wonder
how long one phone call
could possibly take?
when she isn’t back by dark
the school’s 911 call
only takes a second.
//april//|
they find her body
at the bottom of the lake.
//may//|
“and what legacy have you given back
to the academy?”
i put on my graduation cap
and wonder
if the cigarettes
the sparklers
and *****
in the bathrooms
aren’t quite enough.