OUT OF ORDER

I.

Dylan calls and says

come to Chloe’s.

April at a friend’s,

I go, leave a note,

don’t ask permission.

My parents don’t seem

concerned

with normal

family

rules.

We sneak out,

run down

her fire escape.

Chloe in her Kurt Cobain shirt.

We sing “Come As You Are,”

all the way to Ludlow Street.

Use our old fake IDs,

lie to strangers,

Dylan buys rounds of shots.

Dad and James. The bed.

Shot.

An open marriage. What’s always been.

Shot.

Chloe asks why I’m drinking,

I tell her it’s Senior year, right?

Time to party.

Dylan gives me weird looks,

but doesn’t ask questions.

I try to play the jukebox

songs from when we were young,

“Our Lips Are Sealed,” “Love Is a Battlefield,”

but the box keeps flashing red:

out of order.

I kick it once.

Lay my middle finger against the glass.

Dylan laughs, tells the machine it better watch out.

Chloe says we don’t need music, just dance,

and so we do.

II.

Next morning, stumble home,

pass April watching The Wonder Years.

Worried she will smell me,

I walk fast, manage a small hello.

Mom not here. Again.

Dad waves from the kitchen,

bent over a sandwich,

asks how my sleepover was,

I don’t wave

or answer.

Go to my room

but I don’t know why I’m there,

reach for my homework,

head pounding.

Can’t focus on it,

instead I tear

the Columbia application

all the way

in half.

Why would I want to

follow him there.

Then I go into my closet:

throwing everything

that was once folded—

pink, purple, gray—

onto the floor.