or maybe too early.
Jeff’s graduating
at the end of this semester.
There are so many things about him
that scare me,
but I cannot lose another chance to fear—
fear of being vulnerable,
fear of being hurt—
when all this time I’ve been hurting myself.
Putting the potential for damage
into someone else’s hands is scary.
I have to have control,
even if it is the power to self-destruct.
Jeff scares me because he is smart,
because maybe I won’t understand
or maybe because he’ll make me stand up taller.
I’m scared of what will happen
when he leaves in two months,
and it’s only been a week and a day.
I want things so bad
that I force them,
push them until they tear.
Snow again.
Every time the seasons change
I think about the year before.
I wonder how I felt
and if I thought the snow was as beautiful
as it is right now.
I have the dream again,
this time with glass.
I am standing near an ice sculpture
that is starting to melt.
My mouth is filled with glass
and I am bleeding and drooling all over myself.
I keep spitting out tiny shards,
but it is never enough.
Jeff and I are going to a play
at a tiny theater in town.
I’ve bought a bottle of wine
for afterwards.
When I get to his apartment to meet him,
he isn’t there.
I call him over and over
from a pay phone outside.
It is raining and this feels like Jason.
For every minute I wait,
my anger builds.
For every time the bottle of wine clangs
against the stuff in my bag,
I hate him.
He finally comes downstairs,
apologizes,
says he was watching Seinfeld at his neighbor’s,
and we walk to the play in silence.
The play is bizarre
and there are dead baby dolls
hanging from the ceiling.
Back at his apartment,
before I have a chance
to open the wine,
he tells me it’d be better
if we didn’t see each other
since he’s graduating
and then traveling in Europe.
He says it’s only going to get harder.
But I don’t feel any better.
It doesn’t feel any easier.
And I can’t believe
that it is happening again—
that I have found something good
only to have it taken away.
We have an awkward good-bye hug
as I wait for Rachel and Rebecca to pick me up.
He kisses me on the forehead
right between my eyes—
as if I didn’t feel bad enough.
This night was supposed to be fun—
a bottle of wine
and me staying over,
but now I am sitting on a bench
behind the dorms with Rebecca
and I am crying.
There is a pit in my stomach
and I plan to fill it with wine.
Half a bottle later,
I am in my room, cutting my braids out.
I know I am drunk.
I know I am being dramatic,
but it feels good.
In the morning I don’t go to class.
I go to breakfast so late
they are already clearing for lunch.
When I get my cereal,
I see a ghost.
There he is,
in the dining hall,
and I have never seen him here before.
We both smile
and he sits down with me.
He asks how I am
and I tell him about the bottle
meant for us
and the braids.
And it doesn’t hurt to see him
like I thought it would.
ii.
and I can’t tell if things have gone back to normal,
or if this part of my life is the anomaly.
Things are how they were
just before I left for school last year.
I spend most of my days working at the theater
trying to earn some cash.
I sit in the booth and sell tickets
to rich people who think I’m retarded.
Men hit on me,
say, “You’re such a pretty girl.
Why don’t you smile?”
I’m in a tiny glass booth
making seven dollars an hour.
What do I have to smile about?
Usually I just bare my teeth
like an animal in response.
I try to entertain myself in the booth
so I don’t go crazy.
When it’s quiet
I do crosswords and read.
When it’s busy
and a customer is being rude
and paying with a fifty or a hundred, I
pull out the yellow marker
to see if the bill is real.
It drives men nuts
and makes me laugh.
At home it’s the usual drill.
My parents are constantly on top of me.
They want to know where I’m
going, and when I’ll be back.
I try not to stay out too late
and dodge the same fight we always have
about how it keeps my father up.
When I am out with friends
I constantly check my watch
and feel guilty
that me being out with my friends
affects my parents.
But it also makes me angry.
I am always the first to leave and
none of my friends understand why.
It’s the end of winter break
and I feel sick.
My head is heavy, stuffed with snot,
and my joints ache.
When I tell my parents I am going to Nate’s house,
my mother protests, says I am sick
and shouldn’t be going anywhere,
but I convince my father otherwise.
It’s my last night at home
and I want to see Nate.
When I get to his house, Jason is there
and I wonder if they are as uncomfortable as I am.
The three of us smoke a joint
and I fall asleep on Nate’s couch
as they watch basketball.
The next morning I am worse than before.
I shuffle out of bed to the kitchen
to find some decongestants.
My father is cooking, and the TV is on loud.
I sit down in the dining room.
I don’t have the strength to take the pills.
I brace my elbows on my knees
and hang my head down.
I feel like I am being crushed.
My head is sinking lower and lower
and then everything flips.
I have no sense of up or down, only suspension.
I want to call to my father, but I can’t.
My sister walks through the room,
asks me how I’m feeling,
and all I can do is reach out my hand.
She tries to get me to the living room to lie down,
but we don’t make it.
I wake up on the floor by the front door.
Something wet is on my head
; and my father is bent over me,
kissing my face, over and over.
The fire trucks come first,
then the ambulance.
The foyer is filled with people.
I try to tell them I feel better,
but everyone insists I go to the hospital.
The EMTs won’t let me walk to the ambulance.
They have to take me on a stretcher.
Up I go, strapped in,
carried out of my house
with all the neighbors watching.
Back at school,
my therapist and I talk about passing out.
I tell her it is terrifying to be lost
somewhere in between here and there
in the dark nothingness,
to have moments of time
unaccounted for.
Passing out makes me think about death—
about the moment before dying
and how it must feel
to be pulled away from everything you love
and have no control.
I tell her about winter break
and the ambulance and the high fever
and how I spent the day in the hospital,
hooked up to an IV and getting tested for everything.
I tell her it’s not the first time I passed out.
The first time was when I was fifteen.
My sister took me to a concert in the city.
We were up front by the stage, next to the speakers.
The bass was crushing my chest.
I was light-headed and then things began to fade.
The night sky flashed in front of my eyes
and the floor caved in.
My sister’s friend carried me outside
and sat me down in the cool air.
My hands were vibrating.
I asked my sister if she could feel it,
but she couldn’t.
I could see how much it scared her
to not feel what I was feeling.
The next summer it happened again
at an outdoor concert with Abe and Matt.
We were packed in, body to body,
trying to get to the small gate in the fence.
I was overwhelmed by all the people, the noise,
and then things began to fade.
I reached out for Abe,
but before I could say anything,
I fell backwards into the crowd.
I woke up with Abe over me
and I was embarrassed at all the drama.
Medics came rushing into the crowd
and cut a hole open in the fence to get me out.
Later that summer I was in a bar
and I got a bloody nose from the heat.
Once my friends realized what was wrong
they all piled into the bathroom.
They tried to give me advice
on how to make the bleeding stop
and I passed out.
I came to as I was being carried to the street.
When the ambulance came,
they had to take me to the hospital
and call my parents because I was a minor.
The biggest problem I could see was
that I had lied to my parents about where I was
and it was two-thirty in the morning.
iii.
It is a new semester.
Everything is hidden
under the snow.
In my advisor’s office
I am talking about credits
and fulfilling requirements
when I look out the window
at the parking lot and the woods,
and there, carrying a box,
wearing a jacket that is too thin,
is Jeff.
I grab my stuff
and tell my advisor that I’ve got to go—
that I’ve seen a ghost.
I go down the stairs two at a time,
past the Education Department,
and out the side door.
I don’t even put on my jacket.
I catch up to him as he is getting in the driver’s seat.
He says his trip got delayed
and now he’s finally finished packing up his stuff
and heading back to the city.
I can’t believe that he’s been here all this time,
that I never knew,
that he never called.
Valentine’s Day is shit.
It makes me remember elementary school
and how we made cards out of doilies and glitter.
The teacher would staple little mailbox pouches to the wall
and carefully print our names on them.
Somehow I never got as many notes as the other girls.
The only person I can think about is Nate
and how I wish things were different.
I want to send him something.
I want to do something special for him,
but nothing seems right—
everything seems too big.
Finally I settle on sending him one Hershey’s Kiss.
I feel good.
This is good.
It is the right thing.
My therapist says I am better.
My psychiatrist says I am better.
I think I am better.
I am counting down the days
until I finish tapering off my meds.
The bottle of pills is nearly empty.
Five yellow pills,
bits of confetti
that have settled
after a party.
Four yellow pills,
lined up in a T.
Three yellow pills,
a miniature pyramid.
Two yellow pills,
jaundiced eyes staring at me.
One yellow pill left
and it is the best
and scariest feeling.
I am nervous about life
without medication.
It’s a catch-22
to take someone with anxiety disorder
off medication.
Just knowing that I won’t have it in my bag
or in my blood makes me anxious.
I wish there were some way to take me off it
without telling me.
I wonder
if things really have changed,
or if it is the pills.
I feel strong
for doing this,
but it makes me wonder
if I am dependent, weak.
I have so many conflicting emotions.
I am scared,
but mostly proud.
There’s this guy in my poetry class
who is amazing.
I dream about him almost every night.
Walking to class one day I tell him
he was in my dream last night
and he smiles like it’s good news.
A few days later I see him in a bar
and we talk about dreaming.
He wishes he could remember his dreams.
I tell him about how I keep a dream journal
and how when you first wake up,
you can’t let yourself think about anything
besides what you were dreaming.
Days later, we hang out late after a party.
It is nearly five and we stop at the gas station
so he can buy cigarettes and I can buy a lotto ticket.
I am feeling lucky.
The ticket machine isn’t on yet
so we wait and walk through the aisles.
He buys me a red Ring Pop and I think
it’s the best thing anyone’s ever given me.
At his apartment he asks how the Ring Pop tastes
and when I say, “It tastes red,”
he smiles and kisses me
to see for himself.
I can’t stop shaking as we make out.
I ask him if he can feel it
and when he says no, I am surprised.
To cover up for how crazy I am,
I tell him I am cold
and we take a hot shower
and come back and pile on the blankets,
but that doesn’t help either.
iv.
I promised myself that I wouldn’t live at home again
so I am going to live with Claire
and her parents in the city for the summer.
I have a job working at the same office as my sister
and it’s just a few blocks from Claire’s house.
My only responsibility
is to earn money to go to Paris next spring.
Work sucks.
I am the token somewhat-blond
receptionist at the door.
I work nine to five,
have lunch with Audrey and my sister every day,
do busywork at my desk,
and calculate how long it will take
to earn money for Paris.
One afternoon
my boss calls me into his office
to tell me that my skirt is too short.
He doesn’t say it
and then let it go.
He goes on and on.
I try to end the conversation,
but he won’t let it drop.
On my way out of his office
he reaches into his desk
and pulls out German chocolates
wrapped in colored foil.
Now if I come into the office in the morning
and do not go directly to his office
he calls me at my desk
and asks why I haven’t come to say hello.
In his office one afternoon,
he tells me he took one of my coworkers out for dinner,
that he does that with his staff from time to time.
He asks if I would like to go to dinner
and I say yes, without thinking.
But as the word comes out of my mouth,
I wish I could take it back.
As he hands me chocolates, I wonder
if he’s ever asked my sister to dinner
or given her chocolates.
Later in the week
he asks when we should go to dinner.
I try to maneuver around the subject.
He asks where we should go.
I feel trapped.
How could I go out with him?
I’m nineteen and he’s in his fifties.
What would we talk about? Golf?
I don’t even know what to say
to my father when we have dinner alone.
I can’t stop thinking about it
and he won’t let it drop.