Beneath the exam room lights
Where she holds one up
The other lying down
Two sisters
Her life
How will she
Could I
Forget
Forgive
The cause
This worthless waste
of a girl
Why Can’t They See?
All that scared
Seeps through the cracks in my heart
Fractured
As her arm
Lacey
My Lacey
Their Lacey
Sterile gauze pale
Holding her arm
Set straight
Broken—so broken
Even Dad’s arm wrapped around my shoulder can’t hold me
Together
The jagged sobs send the pieces of me flying
That don’t understand why they’re not mad
Those three sets of eyes
One’s arm wrapped up tight
The others by her side
Fortresses around the wheelchair
That wasn’t meant to hold her
Not Lacey
My Lacey
Their Lacey
“You saved us,” Lacey says. “Got us out.”
This is worse
Than the slate
Not this kindness—
It’s not right
Their grandma’s garden-stained hands hugging me limp
Kierra
Butterfly-bandaged cheek pressed against mine
Hugging me too
Why can’t they
Don’t they see?
It was me
All me
The why, that’s the we, in the now, standing here
Can’t they see her?
Broken—so broken
Here now
Like she was then
When we were the fortresses
Dad and I
Dad’s arm reaches through the hole
Time left behind
To pull me close
And I know
Dad sees her too
Can hardly see past
The ghost
Who was our life
Sink or Swim
“It wasn’t your fault—
You know that,” Dad had said.
Those words were easier to swallow
Almost made it down to my heart
As I’d stared into the rearview mirror
Watching the hospital shrink
small, small, small
Caught in the half-moon collarbone groove
Of my neck
Those words woke me up
Made it impossible to breathe
Drove me out to the porch to sit
Gathering stars
Around my shoulders
Tracing tiptoe solar systems on the stairs
Until I see it
Frame scratched
Otherwise intact
Against the side of the house
A Good Samaritan’s deed
One better left undone
My shadow pulls me
Across the dry grass
To the truck for tools
Wrench, screwdriver, nails
Hammered one at a time into the tires
My bike
Coming undone
First one nut
Then two
Wheels, handlebars, seat
From the frame
Rattle-canned new
Forever ago
Thrown into the bed of the truck
By hands slick with oil
The keys drop from the sun visor
Into my lap
As I slam the door against the night
Drive through grasshopper leg music
Out to the pond
Where I Frisbee-throw them in
Tires
Handlebars
Catching
Pieces of metal
Of me
Sinking into gone
News of the Day
Cody didn’t even know
It had happened
Until he drove into the parking lot this morning
Where the words hit his windshield
“Heard your girlfriend almost died yesterday,” they’d said
As they grabbed books and bags out of their rig
Parked alongside Cody’s rusted-out, dented-in orange truck
Cody didn’t stay to ask
Swung out of his truck
Walked into a run
Blasted into the cafeteria
Through the line of heavy-eyed students
Doing the breakfast shuffle
In one door, out the other
With waffle sticks
Scared me so bad
Asia too
The way his gaze was flying around the room
Until he found us
Saw me
He’d been out of town
Should have called
Didn’t know
“What happened?”
So I tell him
Around the plastic stir stick in my mouth
Worried flat between my teeth
About the crumpled metal
Ice-cube words
Leave me cold
Even the warm coming off my coffee
Can’t make it disappear
All that cold
That pulls my eyes into my coffee
So much easier
Than thinking about the part
the ipecac and the purge
the food I should never
have eaten
The part I never told
Anyone
About
The guilt will wake me up
Tonight
Tomorrow
And again
Until the forever I don’t have to think about
If I let myself grow cold
But they won’t let me
Not Cody
Tipping my chin toward the light
Or Asia
Hand on mine from across the table
Holding me down
Lifting me up
Willing me to blink
Back into my life
Hallway Confessional
Dodging the shoe squeaking-jostling-growing, moving energy
That fills the eight-minute space
Between last class and next
Kierra walks down the hall
Comes right up to me and starts talking
All chitchat
Cast aside
“I thought you’d been hit. You were just lying there. Crumpled next to your bike,” she says.
The rest of the world falls away
Leaves me standing
Across from her
On this island
Of accountability
I fell. I guess I—
“I was driving too fast.”
Kierra charges ahead
Shoving my excuses out of the way with her words
“It makes Lacey laugh when I fly up and down those hills. She’s so tiny she bounces all over the place, even in a seat belt. I know it’s not an excuse, but that’s why I was driving like that. I just love hearing her laugh.”
Kierra pauses
Clears her throat
“Before our mom killed herself, she used to do it all the time. Laugh. You know?”
And I do
Not exactly
Because no one’s lives
Are exactly the same
But still
I think I know
“Anyway, she saw you. On the ground. I jerked the wheel, slammed the brakes. My front tire blew, and then we were rolling. She was crying. And I couldn’t help her. Again. But you could. You did.”
Kierra, I—
“I should be mad at you. At myself. I don’t know. I don’t even care. All I know is, if I were to lose Lacey, I might as well die myself.”
We stand there
Looking at each other
Me and her
Because those last words
Came so fast
So hard
They knocked the breath
Out of me
“Sometimes I hate it here,” Kierra says.
But she’s not angry
Just sad
“I miss everything back home. My school. My friends.” She pauses. “My dad. I really miss my dad. But we can never go back. It’s just too…”
Her voice melts
Sad.
I finish for her
Without even thinking
Immediately wishing I could take
That word
Back
But she reaches out
Pulls it in
Exhales and nods
“It is. Don’t tell anyone I said that last part, okay? About hating it here? Everyone has been so nice to me. They might feel bad if they knew, and they shouldn’t. It’s me. Like I said. I miss my old life.”
And everyone who was in it
I think
“Anyway, here.”
Kierra digs in her bag
Pulls out a construction-paper star
With a crayon picture on the front
A girl and a dog
From Lacey to me
Tell her I said thank you, I say, taking it from her hands. And I hope she gets better soon.
“I will.”
Kierra pauses
Turns to go
But stops
“I hope you do too.”
I look down
At the star in my hands
As the bell rings
Wondering just how much
She
And everyone else
Knows
Special Day
I don’t know why
I didn’t think this would be awkward
I just didn’t expect them both to be here
Kierra and her grandma Jean
Standing alongside me at the edge of the carpet square
Beneath the dancing numbers and animal cracker alphabet
Behind the audience of seventeen kindergarteners
Eyes trained on the one standing beside Miss Dixon
Wearing a smile
Holding the Sharpie
That each of her classmates will use to initial the hot pink cast
Encasing her arm
Because that’s what she has requested
On her Special Day
An uppercase, proper noun, double-decker date
Lacey’s first day back
After three days out
And her birthday
Six years old today
I knew her birthday was this month
I’d just forgotten when
It makes me sick
To realize that I’ve been so
Self-absorbed
Lacey ran up to me when I walked in
“I missed you!” she’d cried.
Her voice so strong
Soaring above the shadow of the little girl
With sun-streaked braids
Who had been so interested in her shoes
Forever ago
It made it worse to know that Kierra and their grandma Jean
Had seen the package in my hand
And assumed that the horse-print wrapping paper
Curlicue ribbons
Meant
I remembered
Because it never crossed their minds
That it had been meant
As a get-well-please-forgive-me gift
Another day of just her and me
Sitting on the beanbag chairs the color of lima beans
Just me and her
Or so I’d thought
“Can you stay for my snack?” Lacey had asked
As I handed her the gift
That’s what I’m thinking about now
as the kids all stand
ready to single file past Lacey
so excited to sign her cast
That snack
Caramel Rice Krispies Treats
Individually wrapped
One for everyone
Including
Me
Insurmountable
These are the things I can do:
Ride a horse
Rope a steer
Drive a tractor
Buck a bale
Fix a fence
This is the thing I cannot do:
Eat
The
Rice Krispies Treat
In my hand
Knowing
I should
If I could
I would?
But my mind says
Not this
Not now
Not even for Lacey
Because
There is a wall of numbers
Stacked
On the side
Of the wrapper
That wall
It’s too tall
Too thick
I can’t make it
Around
Should-Would-Could
The next part should be easy
Here is how it should go
I would understand
Why
I should
Eat
I would see
How sick
I
Am
I would know
That this (eating)
Is the right thing
To
Do
If I admit that I can’t
Couldn’t
Do this
Not even for Lacey
I would have to admit
I am
out
of
control
Cheese Sandwiches
He made them
Dad did
One for each of us
An after-school snack
On matching blue plates
Because he came home early today
To check in
To make sure
Okay
I thought I’d have
More time
Before this discussion
More time
To figure
Out
How to
What to
Say
But this sandwich
In front of me
Is making it difficult
Impossible
To speak
Dad sits
Sinks
Into his chair
Across from me
At the kitchen table
Hating myself
As another hole opens
Yawns and stretches wide
Between us
I wish I could tell him
Why
This began
How
It will end
But I can’t
Because I don’t
Know
So I stand
On the far side of the hole
Staring at my sandwich
“It’s hard, isn’t it?”
His words
Soft and slow
I nod
Because it is
He raises his sandwich
Takes a bite
Tips his head toward me
Glancing at my sandwich
As he chews
Slowly
Slowly
Just one bite
Then puts his sandwich down
This sandwich
It’s only cheese
Two slices of bread
I can do this
One bite
I can
And I do
Chewing
Slowly
Slowly
Just one bite
Then I put it down
This is how we go
Slowly
Slowly
He and I
Ignoring the tears
On our cheeks
As we eat our sandwiches gone
Follow-up Exam
We need to check in, Dad said
Make sure everything is okay
What with the accident and with you
Being so thin
Too tired
Just not able
To
Eat
Not like you used to
Even though
As I pointed out
I did
Eat
That sandwich
Yesterday
Which he knows
Because he saw
But still
This is fine
It makes sense
A trip to see
What is wrong
If anything is
Which I doubt
pretend not to know
it
is
On Second Thought
Seeing this doctor
the one who handed me red suckers after my booster shots
pasted Bugs Bunny Band-Aids over my playground cuts
who hugged me hard after Mom
was gone
Hadn’t seemed like a bad idea
At first
But now that I’m here
Sitting in the waiting room
Jiggling my knee
Staring at the Highlights magazine in my lap
It does
Feel
Bad
The door to the hallway that leads to the exam room opens
“Raesha, come on back,” Kami, the nurse in Snoopy-print scrubs, calls.
I look at Dad
Wish we could call it off
But we’re here
With my name
Hanging in the air
A smile on Kami’s face
As she waits