Everything is poetry. If I am not onstage, I am practicing. I yell the words into the wind down at the lake. I whisper them into my pillow before I fall asleep.
Normal is taking a long shower
loud music cranked so high
it’s louder than the water splashing
but all you hear later is
How about leaving some hot water for the rest of us?
When you can’t be normal anymore
your father pounds on the locked
door
calling your name
calling your name
calling your name
panic stenciled over his heart
not again not again
Answer me or I’m breaking down
this door!
Stepping naked from the shower
skin reddened from the hot water
I reach for the towel on the back of
the shaking door and
yell back, Can’t I have a shower in
peace?
Step back into the steam.
The burning rage of the water
slices over my tender skin.
I want to pull the words
back.
Can’t.
The poems carry me through the aisles at the bookstore. They keep me company on the bus.
I have measured my year in firsts
the first time I came home—after
Hannah died
the scent of hospital in my hair
the first bagel pushed into the toaster
inedible
tossed into the garbage despite a
hollow ache
that grew and grew and grew
and grows even now
I capture thoughts, single words and endless lines in small notebooks. I even write on the inside of my wrist.
the first time I showered
and wondered whether to leave
enough hot water
for her
the first time we didn’t buy school
supplies
because she wasn’t here and I
wasn’t going back
the first Halloween without costumes
shutting off the porch light
closing the drapes
and hiding upstairs
my mother and I hushing each other
as if somehow the ghosts could get
inside
and discover our stupid lie.
I shout, weep, bleed the year in poems.
The first Christmas
her birthday
the events getting bigger
before I notice that
Hannah is missing things
she shouldn’t be missing.
The first time it happened
was last summer when
I stopped, mid-sentence
and almost said aloud
Saturday won’t work—
because Hannah won’t be here
won’t be here to attend the funeral.
Back when Hannah was so close to
being here
it seemed impossible she
was really gone.
There’s a huge crowd at Antonio’s when the first poet begins. It’s Sam, an old biker with so many tattoos it looks like he’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt under his leather vest. He’s a regular and does a lot of love poems that rhyme.
When it’s my turn I do the poem about how the world reacts to a suicide. I’ve chopped the first lines and added three others.
New friends are torn between
wanting and not wanting
to have known her.
What will Ebony think? When I join her at the table she smiles.
In the second round I let fly with “She Comes Bearing Gifts.”
My sister had friends
once
lots of them
before she stopped
having friends, that is
long before she stopped
being.
Jackie Lisa Tiffany Brandon
Jordan, Max and Xan
faded away
when she stopped taking their calls
never had them in
never went out.
Until that day
when she met friends for coffee.
How could such an ordinary thing
be so heavy with the thousand hints
we missed?
What we wanted to see was
what she wanted us to see.
She was getting better
she’d turned that corner into the light
right into the coffee shop where
oh, yes, her friends are waiting
because that’s what normal girls do
chat over lattes
hold the foam add the whip
skim mocha soy extra hot.
Sometimes they give each other
gifts, don’t they?
Only for that extraspecial
tell ya anything, hon
never let you go, BFF.
For her, the world
the silver horseshoe earrings from
Nana.
A small gift the least you can do
a thank-you
for being there when it mattered.
Jackie told me they were glad to
hear from Hannah
she seemed more like the old Hannah
the can-I-have-a-bite-of-that?
Hannah
the you’ll-never-believe-what-he-
said Hannah
the Hannah we knew was in there
somewhere, right?
Jackie insisted she should have
known
was closest
knew Hannah best—
Didn’t we all think we knew her
best—
should have known that earrings
were more than earrings
that small gifts in the hands of
someone on the exit ramp
are not small at all?
On the night the relatives start to
arrive
Jackie hands me the earrings.
Nestled in their blue velvet box
like tiny sleeping memories
they curl tight into silver slivers
so sharp they bite through my mask
send
hairline cracks pulsing through
my carefully made-up calm.