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.

(Solitary Chamber. Heart breaking melodious music is flowing silently. Young Ren is looking pale, soliloquizing.)

Young Ren:  Sweet Flance!
                     Can you hear me?
                     I do know you can never see me now;
                     But hear me --- my words at least!

Feel my heart that hangs on nothing;
Yet resting itself on my unrequited love.
  
                     Hear me! Do hear me!

Send thy spirit unto me awhile,
And hearken my silent words.

                     Dear Flance!
Thou must be now with thy partner
Breaking thy footprints with me once;
Yet ne'er am I angry with thee.
From him I should not take thee away;
Yet listen unto me awhile.

                      Dear Flance!

I loved thee not at the very first sight
Like Orlando and Rosalind ---
Orlando was a wrestler,
Rosalind was a fair lady.

Their love began at an arena in a contest ---
Rosalind in the guise of Ganymede,
Their love passed thro' rustic lands
Symbolizing the art of Nature,
Their love stirred the young hearts
With wonder and fancy.

Sweet Flance!
                       Romeo died of Juliet and Juliet of Romeo ---
                        Breaking endurance to chaos.
                       There was poison in their love.
Dear Flance!
                       Jealousy lingered in the fatal love
                       Betwixt Othello and Desdemona,
                       At night their love was born,
                       At night their love was dead
                       When blackened by the candle light.
Dear Flance!
                        Lysander loved Hermia
                        And sought fanciful beings
                        For their fanciful union.
Dear Flance!
                       Know you, Keats died of consumption?
                      His love for ***** Brown was limitless,
                      And so burst into tears.
                      Oh! No!
                     MY love for thee can never have comparisons.
Sweet Flance!
                     Blossomed my love for thee
                    When thou wert young,
                     When thou wert beautiful;
                     Yet it's not of Romeo's,
                     Of Othello's,
                     Of Lysander's,
                     Of Dante's,
                     Of Keats',
                     For they died of their love.





My love for thee be unrequited; yet ineffable.
You felt not my love; yet I cannot be Romeo.
Know you?
                Romeo loved Juliet,
                Juliet loved Romeo,
                And so they died without love.
Loved I thy heart, not thee?
Love I thy heart, not thee?
And so,
             We live in remembrance of each other.
Dear Flance!  
              Thou must be now living with thy partner
               Rejoicing in his presence.
               Can you think of me living myself.
               Rejoicing in my thoughts of you?
               Here am I in the air with wings waxed;
              Yet I'll not fall down to fragments.

              Know you?  
              I am to lead my life myself,
              But with thoughts of you!

              For
                    Loved I thee, still I love thee,
                                           Ever I'll love thee.

(Young Ren sheds tears)

Sweet Flance!

My tears are not of my loneliness sans thee;
But born of bliss within me with thoughts of you.

              (Curtain  Falls)

Ashen face
Bluest feelings
Cascade of unfortunate events
Desolated at best
Estranged by you
Faux happiness
Ghost of you
Haunted by the past
Iron heart
Jarred thoughts
Knight without an armor
Lysander without Hermia
Monotonous days
Nightmares and night terrors
Overwhelmed by your departure
Poetic justice
Quenched flames
Rusted heart
Separation anxiety
Thunderstorms
Victim of my sins
Withdrawal syndrome
Xenophobic unless it's you
Yesterday, today and tomorrow
Zero, game over

you cut open my core and threw my insides at the walls
with all of your indecencies and heedless galaxies
that i'd try to explore, but you kept closed, and gravity;
my feet on the ground as they should be,
as musicians and stupid poets like me
dedicate promises we're positive don't change how you love.

and i figure you to be my supernova.

this abominable disaster you've caused transformed me into
the ink blots splattered and messy and unconstitutional cracks
in the ceiling that we think to fix but never quite have enough spackle.
and i'm **** at sewing, but you force me to stitch myself back
together for days and weeks until i said,
"i want you out of my life"
even though we both knew i was lying and desperate to feel
something because ****** romantics like me
want hermia and lysander,
not demetrius and helena.

and we can't think without the noise of each other and the
constant loose ends that fray,
and time and time again imissyouimissyouimissyou.

and my silence, your silence is the loudest heartbreak i know,
and beethoven never had these problems because he could feel
and he knew that fire and hearts do not mix,
and neither should deceit,
but pretty boy you tore out my heart with burning hands and kept
it in your back pocket with all the others,
and i never said otherwise because at least i was something to you
even if our hearts beat to different drums,
and explosions,
and cracked ribs that you'd like to take because my heart wasn't enough and you needed pieces of me to make yourself feel whole.

and i wish i was a little more selfish because i'm stuck with a
carcass of my old self and the buzzards don't care of the
shell i am now; made up of frozen sno cones, and your eyes.

O mother how I grieve you. Survivor of a thousand
Summers, you take your place in the song
Of mothers long past. You are not alone there,
O wise one, your mother, and her mother
Have taken your hand and lead you in to a dream.
A dream where I can not follow.

I think of Otrera the warrior queen, of wives
beaten down only to arise as phoenixes.
O brave Amazon, your legacy lives on in Hippolyta and
Hermia, your wild daughters becoming women.

Beyond her is Jael, O wife of a Kenite, and the
Mutilated corpse of Sisera, the foolish king
Who thought her weak. Your blood waters the
Dust, your handsome face cracked right through
By her mighty blow. O great king, will you
Scorn her femininity now?

When I am weary, I shall think of Elizabeth,
A queen who sunk an armada and reformed
The churches with a single order. Where is
Your husband? You have no need of him.

They are joined by Boudica and
Her wild head of curls. I believe you
Will be good friends O warrior of
Sleepless nights. For you have both
Spat in the eyes of men and defied your
Empires for the sake of freedom.

Sylvia holds your hand tenderly now,
O mother of my youth. Her torment has
Passed now, and so will yours too. For
A dream is too ethereal a place for scars.

I wondered if you would be afraid
When you took your place among the
Mothers of the ancients, and yet time has
Showed me a picture of you, holding court
Amongst them with your steaming *** of
Lady Grey. Graceful as a queen.

Your children who live on in this world
Will remember you. O wise one,
You eat men like air. And like a
Phoenix I will become you.