i haven't been thinking about you lately, i swear i haven't, but i was just thinking about parties and trashing myself and how anyone who isn't trashing themselves is just preserving their own corpse and i was thinking about death, lots of it, and i was suddenly hit with the realization that i am going to die [as i occasionally remember] and i had the sudden sensation to tell someone i think i am going to die and i picked up the phone and i nearly typed it all out, until i realized how he would react. how alarmed he would be. how he'd think i was speaking about suicide and try to talk me off a roof i'm not standing on. and then i thought about you. i thought about all of our talks and how i could say anything around you and you'd absorb it and yeah, sometimes you made me feel stupid, but most times you made me feel heard. sometimes you even had crazy things to say yourself and i, of course [being in love with you], ate them right up, right out of your lap. and i miss that. but talking to you is completely out of the question and he'll never understand.

he told me he loved me, did you know that? weeks ago . . . and i've been thinking about saying it back for days, but every time -- every ******* time -- i think about it, there you are. with your stupid name and your stupid self and ******* i loved you, you know that? i loved you so much that the thought of saying it to anyone else physically hurts. it feels like it'd be physically impossible to get the words out. two years down the road and here i am, tongue-tied in front of a boy you don't even know, screaming at my memories of you for not being able to catch me.

you are delightfully
uncomplicated --
rational, funny,
no-nonsense, no drama,
and with you everything is
simple
and black-and-white.
but me, I'm used
to my life in shades of grey
and intrications
interest me --
what is life without a little
chaos?
oh, if only I could love you --
but all I've ever truly loved
is her confusion
and how delightfully
complicated
that made things.

i don't want to meet you in a coffee shop several years from now, when i've undoubtedly put on weight and still lost half my hair to the e.d. when i starve for a week or bend over the toilet because i finally cracked i'm not thinking of  several years from now. i'm thinking about a year from now. i'm thinking about three months. two. one. next week, tomorrow, yesterday. i'm thinking about hopping on a plane, or a bus, or just ******* walking until i reach you. until i can show you, show you what you've done to me and show you the brilliance of it all. no, the insanity of it all. the way my skin stretches over my thighs like tiger stripes and the little ridges on my fingernails from not getting enough calcium. all for you. i want to show you what i've done for you, no, what you did to me -- is there a difference? i doubt it makes a difference when you've become the ******* voice in my head.

i just want to be beautiful enough for you. right now.

when I was a little girl I dreamt
of a happy, adventurous life;
I once dreamt I would become someone
instead of someone's wife.
but adventure was not meant for me.
(for a woman, it's not right.)
so I settled for the daydreams
by my darling husband's side.
oh, but who knew that you, love,
would ask me to be a thief --
turned a man into a murderer
with that stolen handkerchief.
maybe I, too, am responsible
for this overwhelming grief;
she was good, and kind, a most perfect wife;
but betrayed by jealousy.
now she lies here, dead; all I loved is gone,
and this man, he took her life --
out of jealousy, and o'er a lie;
and he called it sacrifice.
now I, too, must die; and at your hands
but at least I'll die for truth.
my dear husband; they've reserved a special
place in hell for you.

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.

What would you say if
I asked you for
another chance?

It wouldn't be
my second, maybe
third, or fourth

and I have no guarantee
I won't blow it
this time.

What would you say if
I asked you to
choose me
once more

even though I can't
promise I'll always
choose you?

What would you say if
I told you
I don't love you, but
lately I've been thinking
I could?

Would it be enough for you
if I asked you
to wait for me?

Because you have made me
happier
and a little less
heavy

and because your love
might save me, and
I'm tired of drowning?

I might run out on you
again, I get scared
easily and I never
seem to know what
I want, but I think
it's you, this time,

and I know this doesn't
sound altogether
promising, but at least
it's honest, so tell me.

What would you say?