Step on bits of
Me
How Could I Think
People okay with me w/Blake?
Come back, little piglet
Playtime is over
Dealing
Gorged Gooey Greasy Grub
Gonna Get Gargantuan Gut
G O O D
There Was a War
I fought it and lost
Enemy sought win
At any cost
Inhaled burger bombs
Rapid-fire desserts
Promise to love me
Till it no longer hurts
Enemy used propaganda
Everything’s a lie
Hurt returns
With the last slice of pie
Salad. Brown rice. Fruit plate.
I could say I win
But I lack will
Yet again
Enemy grins
Its smile greasy
It chuckles
“This is too easy”
It won’t make the news
Channel two, five, or four
But here on this very spot
There once was a war
It seems
In the end
Even tears will run out
On you
A Question
Invades mind like termites
Running inside skull
Eating away all remaining sanity
Does. He. Know. About. Website?
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
notall2gether: You there?
Godotwait4me: Yeah, just got home.
notall2gether: Did you know?
Godotwait4me: Know what?
notall2gether: About the website
Godotwait4me: . . .
notall2gether: Don’t send me any damn dots. ANSWER ME
Godotwait4me: Yeah, I heard about it
notall2gether: Why didn’t you tell me?
Godotwait4me: I don’t tell you about every awful thing I hear. If there’s a three-car pileup with strangers, I won’t text you. Why ruin your day over something you can’t change?
notall2gether: These aren’t strangers. They’re kids who hate me
Godotwait4me: #$@* them. They don’t really know you
notall2gether: It doesn’t matter. They want me dead. You knew and didn’t say anything
Godotwait4me: I was protecting you. I didn’t want you to get hurt.
notall2gether: Then you fail bc this hurts more than I can tell you.
Godotwait4me: I’m sorry.
notall2gether: Before we met only a few kids got on me. Now, I’m being terrorized by the whole school.
Godotwait4me: Hey, they get on me too but I don’t care
notall2gether: Who gets on you?
Godotwait4me: It doesn’t matter. I just mean that I don’t let it get to me.
notall2gether: Who is getting on you about being with me?
Godotwait4me: Hudson. He didn’t invite me to his party. But so what?
notall2gether: He’s your best friend
Godotwait4me: Guess he wasn’t.
notall2gether: Great, that’s just great. Now you’re losing your BFF? I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry.
[notall2gether has logged off]
Godotwait4me: Shay? Shay?
Will Not Allow
Weeping
Too much of that already
Fall asleep dreaming
Playing Monopoly
“Dad, if you let me have ice cream for dinner, I
won’t charge you when you land on my property”
Next Day Am Late to Class
Rush to locker
Find note from him
Heart Leaps Into
Throat, hands won’t be still
HE says:
Know that “them” is
“They” and “they”
Don’t matter
We can turn villagers to believers
Raging voices to melodic song
Flaming pitchforks to soft light
Won’t open our doors, minds, hearts
Won’t invite, entertain, tolerate
Wicked ways
We won’t. Let “them” in.
Don’t Let Them
We won’t. Let “them” in.
Don’t Let Them
Tell My Heart
Don’t run to him
This is best
Godot Calls
Emails, texts
Won’t reply
A Few Days Later
I have ignored Godot
Forty-two times
It’s the Hardest Thing
I’ve done
Kelly Canyon Can’t
Stop
Smiling . . .
News of Our Breakup Spreads
Website posts party banner
King Drops Pig!
Yay! Yay! Yay!
A Week Later
Godot
Texts: Ok. I’m Done
And So He Is
He makes no more attempts
Boots Is Irate
Since learning about site
She tried
To escape hospital
To confront
Kelly Canyon
Orderlies
And guards had to
Hold her back
She Spits Words
Only formed by
Tattooed truckers
In bad film
If Dash
Were here
He’d find a way to
Sparkle this situation
Longing for Dash Gives Way
To anger
Target:
Dash’s dad
Fury propels
Me to Dash’s
Home
Boots texts me:
Sent you backup
Got to Dash’s house. Found backup warring with himself.
“Hi, Sam”
“H-h-hey”
He looked like child on a dare
Stay the night in the haunted house
Dash’s Dad Opens Door
I shoot Word Bullets
“How Dare You?”
Words make contact
With his chest
“She Just Wants to Know Why You Sent Dash Away”
The backup tries to repair damage
“You Are His Dad. Your Job Is to Love Him,” I Shoot Again
He stands still
Fearing more will come
He is right
“It Doesn’t Matter”
If he’s gay
If he’s a fat left-handed
Alien
He Clears His Throat in a Dad-Like Manner
“My son is lost. I am helping him find his way back.”
The scared kid takes deep breath approaches monster
“Mr. Montgomery, the first time you liked a girl, you knew because
Hands sweat. Mouth dries. Heart pounds.”
“So what?” the monster roars
“So, when a boy likes a boy
Hands sweat. Mouth dries. Heart pounds.
It’s the same thing,” Sam pleads
The Monster Doesn’t Agree
“It’s not natural,” it says.
My Backup Needed Backup
“My dad is gone
I GET NO MORE
Stern talks. Pep talks. Boy talks.
I will never be
Hugged again. Held again. Loved again.
It hurts . . .
When I wake
It hurts . . .
When I sleep
Dad’s absence
Acid through heart
Time eats away
Memories
Beg. Plead. Cry.
Nothing brings him back
I’m awake
It hurts a
gain . . .
Dash is feeling the same thing
You are a dad
You have one job
Love your kid.
Mr. Montgomery
Do your damn job!”
I stomp away
Leave him with his shock
And conscience
Did I just . . . ?
I yelled at Dash’s dad
A grown man
The size of a tree
A Week Later, Halloween Dance Arrives
I enter
The gym’s been transformed
From place where: I get teased
To place where: I get teased
While music plays
The orange-and-black decorations
Smoky room, creepy songs
Make “fear” factor
Just being among crowd
Makes fear a factor
(No need for the sound effects)
I’m Surrounded By
Parade of demons dressed as
Nurses. Princesses. Kittens.
While They’re Different Costumes
They wear same mask
They make same adjustment to attire
Now each requires a seedy street corner
To complete the look
In Other Words
They are all
Slutty
The Nurse. The Princess. The Kitten.
All of Their Costumes Are
Too short
Too tight
Too much
The Guys Are All Dressed as Dogs
Even with
Varied costumes
There’s
Batman. Sherlock. Cops.
Yet
Trust me
They are all
Dogs
They chase girls
And bark
I Go to the Dance Alone
For the same reason
Pretty blond girls in films
Investigate strange noise in basement—
I’m an idiot.
Seriously, Why
Go to this dance alone?
Knowing I’m AT this dance alone
And how the hell do I
Alone?
Shay Summers, you promised
You would come to dance
To represent
Others who could not be here
Boots and Dash
Dance for
Them.
Okay, Fine
Will enter
Dance
Alone
And
Dance
Alone
What If
Godot sees me?
I will melt, like
Crayons in microwave
Butter in searing pan
Wicked Witch and water
No! I Will Not
Hide from ex
Will be brave
Visible
Stand my ground
It Just So Happens My Ground
Is near the wall, by the punch bowl
Everyone in
The in-crowd
Stops to note
That
I am here
Alone
They
Whisper. Sneer. Judge.
I don’t care
Will stand
Here looking
Unfazed. Uninterested. Unconcerned.
About what THEY think
Ha! Like “they” ever think
They just form
Mobs
Attack
Well, tonight: I won’t be chased off
Tonight, I will stand
Still
For everyone who
Ran away
This is my
Last stand
Just me, the wall, and the grape-lime punch bowl
There Was a Chance That I Could
Have gone unseen
A chance I could have gotten away with
Very little scarring
But, across the dance floor is
Kelly and her Pointy Finger of Judgment
She makes sure everyone
Knows I’m here
Alone
I Don’t Believe in Violence
But I don’t believe
All life is precious
I think Kelly
Should be under bed of earth.
She looks over
To see if I have tears to
Donate to her cause:
“Drive Shay Mad” fund
“Not Today, You Demon Spawn!”
I shout in my head
In real life, I
Smile
Yes, a smile
Is all the
She-beast is getting.
I Never Thought I Would
Feel this emotion at a dance
But here it is: pride!
“Okay, Maybe I Can Do This”
I confirm to myself out loud
Maybe I am stronger than they thought
Maybe I am
Stronger than
I thought . . .
I Start To
Move to music
Sip on punch
Crunch on chips
Look, I’m Fitting In!
What???!!!!
I Smile
Not to prove anything to Kelly
But because I am happy
I’m at a Dance Alone and I Am Okay
Shay Summers is
Okay!!!
“Shay, Hi”
Godot says behind me
I Want to Turn and Face Him
My body has different plans
Make a quick inquiry:
Dear Arms and Legs,
This is Shay Summers
Where are you going?
Dear Ms. Summers
Our current destination is:
Away.
We are going away.
I don’t remember
Bursting past double doors of gym
Guess I did
As I am, now, outside dance
Shay is outside
While everyone is in
So what else is new?
Never Should Have
Come
Heading now where I
Belong: Boots’s bedside
At the hospital
I fill her in on my
Nightmare at the dance
She scolds my frantic run
For the door
And blame my legs
We also lament
Failure to bring
Dash home
Not Sure That’s All That Is Upsetting
Boots. She is distant
Helloooooooo?
She snaps back to the present
“Boots, out w/ it. What’s wrong?”
“Shay, I’ve Been Dying for a Year”
Should be easy now
Her body
Folds under weight
Of fear
Hold Her
Till world ends
Or till she is steady
“It’s Okay to Be Afraid”
We’re fifteen
Uncertainty is
Our right
“Oh No! Runny Nose, Puffy Eyes: Very Un-Gaga, Ladies”
Turn. Find
Him there
My
Sparkle Dazzle Shiny
DASH!!!
Light Breaks Through
Abyss of weeks gone by
Nurses and doctors
Run in wake of
Our screams
They scold. Use
Words like
Hospital and policy
And other words
We are too loud
We bury him in questions
Says his da
d
Freed him this morning
“And what about Jett?”
“Heartbroken when I left, of course”
Of course . . .
He’s glowing
There’ll definitely be emails
“What made your dad change his mind?”
“He’s scared of Shay
And something about doing his job?”
Dash asks what it meant
I Smile
And hug him again
Today something is gonna get bedazzled
“I need a condom”
Boots declares to the room
It’s weird. She used all English words.
Yet . . . ????
Dash has similar reaction
“Um, come again?” he asks.
Boots tries to sound casual
She fails
She looks around the room
At everything. Everything but us
We wait
“I Want to Have Sex,” She Says Yet Again
I want to feel something inside me
Other than tumors
I want to lie down for something
Other than x-rays
I want to lift my shirt for someone
Other than my doctor
I want to cry out from something
Other than pain
Both Dash and I Start Talking at Once
We steal lines from after-school specials
Like wait for the right guy
Like wait till it’s special
Like
Wait till you’re in love
“WAIT?”
Boots counters using terminally ill logic
Waiting is for people with time
Dying girls only own now
“Stop saying that!”
Dash orders like teacher to bad student
“Divas don’t die. You know what?
We need a little Gloria.”
NO!!!!
We beg him
But it is too late
Cue Dash Montgomery’s theme song
“At first I was afraid—”
Boots Cuts Him Off Before the Chorus
Don’t lie
Thinking it will make me happy
Don’t hide
Truth thinking it won’t find me
Don’t tell
The dying girl she’ll be fine
Thinking she’ll die slower
I Hold Her Hand
To my chest
“No more talk of death”
I plead
She Confides in Us
My Doctors are soldiers
In the beginning I was World War II
Now I am Vietnam
Boots, It’s Okay If You Don’t See
The love of your life coming for you
I didn’t see Godot coming into my world
But he did
(Though it didn’t work out . . .)
Dash didn’t think his dad would come around
But he did
Why, why can’t something AMAZING
Happen for you too?
You think I could find AMAZING?
Despite herself, she smiles
I can’t even find my way out of this bed
Dash lights up
Out of this bed? Honey, we can do much better than that
This is bad . . .
Dash announces
We are going to CRASH Hudson’s after party!
Like I said, this is bad.