Later, when I’m back at home, I wonder if it does any good to spew this stuff all over our audience. Who cares about that first time in David’s car? And what about Ebony’s married gentleman friend? How does it help anyone to know any of this?
These questions scribble their way into my journal. I’m left with the thought that I will never know who is listening. Maybe some girl who is churning inside with guilt because she enjoys her boyfriend’s tongue just a little too much might realize she’s not alone. Maybe some girl who’s thinking things will be better after she takes those pills will hesitate long enough to get some help.
“Ta-ra! Ta-ra! Ta-ra!”
Ebony and Maddy start the chant.
Others in the packed coffee shop join in.
The scalding water
can’t mask this other pain
can’t stop the bus
rolling into the shower stall.
Number 7
Courtland-Downtown
the driver’s face
a moon in the window.
one two three
Maybe she counted
then gave herself a shove.
Maybe she fell
her poor balance, the crowds…
An old man swears he heard her cry
out
a teenager claims silence.
Whatever she said or didn’t say
whatever she thought or didn’t think
whatever hesitation, good sense
regret
second thoughts
drowned out
by the squeal of bus brakes.
watch out!
stop!
bus driver leaping out of his seat
tie flying behind him
someone holding one of Hannah’s
crutches
though it is obvious crutches won’t
be much use
to the crumpled, bleeding body so
still on the road
Cell phones snap open
Nine-one-one emergency. Do you
need police, fire or ambulance?
The crowd pushing in
What happened?
A girl just got hit by a bus
Did she fall?
Will she be okay?
Of course not—
the angle of the neck
the shattered skull.
Everything. Everything about this
girl is broken.
In the shower
the heat
the steam
the water
the endless hot tears
swirl through and around and into
me
into the street scene so real
that sometimes I wonder
Should I stay unclean?
Snap the taps back off
wrap the towel around me
sink to the floor
a locked door between me and
all those funeral preparations
relatives hunched over the dining
room table
struggling to write the obituary
waiting for me to join them
to help honor the life that was my
sister’s.
She checked out
made it easy on herself.
But what about us?
What about me?
The way forward, through the
bathroom door
littered with saying the wrong thing
smiling when the last thing I want
to do is smile.
The way back, through time, a
minefield of
what-ifs
if-onlys
I-should-haves.
Or I can stay here
in the quiet of this small room
until someone panics
breaks down the door.
The applause carries me back to our table.
“Good job,” Maddy says. “You’ll get through to round two for sure.”
Ebony nods. “Shh. Karl’s up.”
Karl explodes with a poem about two Germanys before the Berlin Wall was taken down.
Shoot. Shoot. Shoot to kill.
We protect our citizens
keep them safe behind the wall.
Ebony is next. Her whole body lifts into the poem. Her mother black, her father white, she lives in a simmering space between. The words tumble and roll around her. She rises up onto her toes, her hips moving this way and that. She is fierce in the challenges she throws at us.
People shout and bang mugs on tables even before the last words fade away. She drops her face into her hands and backs away from the mic. When she slides back into the empty seat beside me, she cannot suppress a smile.
“Good,” I say. “You made it.”
She crosses her fingers and holds them high.
Six of us move on to the second round of the night. Everyone is sharp and hungry.
Blake, tonight’s emcee, says, “Please welcome Tara Manson.”
This is what’s in the mail:
Two men and a strong ladder
to fix your gutter
hungry students to paint your house.
Phone bill. VISA statement.
Who cares? stuff
arrives every day.
Then, a fat envelope
soft with crinkles as if
it had been well-handled
or stuffed in a backpack
or hidden under a mattress
or all of the above.
Addressed to me.
It isn’t my name
that hits me like a punch to the gut.
It’s the loopy handwriting
a heart over the letter i
each time it appears.
Wild thoughts crash into each other
a hailstorm
of jumbled questions.
Where is Hannah writing from?
If the girl in front of the bus wasn’t
Hannah
then who?
On my bed
legs crossed
hands quivering
I tear open the envelope and
tug out the contents
start with the letter
written—in haste?
With plenty of time to consider?
Dear Tara
By the time you read this
I will be gone.
Don’t be sad it’s better like this.
It doesn’t matter if I am
around anymore
you and Mom and Dad
deserve to be happy
it’s bad that you are always
worrying about me.
She goes on to explain
no friends no life no hope no future nothing but some kind of dark hole where she has no interest in staying. She doesn’t expect me to understand.
I am a drain on you and
everyone.
I know you are trying to help
but that isn’t your job.
You will be happy at university
and this way you don’t need to
worry.
If I do this now
you won’t have to miss
any school for the funeral.
As if missing school for the funeral
might have been a hardship
as if going to a funeral
is something you want to do
instead of other things
as if there’s no contest
as if this is a logical choice
Stupid stupid stupid ass.
I love you forever and always
your sister
Hannah
I turn it over and over and over
looking for more—over and over—
trying to find Hannah
over and over—
Written on the back
of a fast-food restaurant tray liner
the note dodges grease spots.
The page swims before my eyes
wobbly, uncertain
real and final.
Tucked into the envelope
a napkin
scarred with chicken-scratch lists
Dad
Cash (not much, sorry
look in my purse, bank
account closed)
School books and papers
(or just burn them)
I hear the or whatever she has
not added.
Mom
Books
Riding ribbons, trophies
etcetera
Tara
Riding stuff (I think it’s all
down in the basement)
Earrings (except for horse-
shoes—those to Jackie)
Books (share with Mom)
Clothes (or give away to
charity)
The pen had skipped and blotted
over her last will and testament
scribbled in a booth?
on a hard plastic seat?
at the bus stop?
Earrings. Books. Clothes.
Did she expect us to appreciate
this thoughtful gesture?
Did she imagine we’d be thankful that
even in her time of despair
she was thinking of us
when, clearly, she was not thinking
of us at all
or she would have known that this
pitiful offering
was so shallow—so selfish
a transparent attempt to ease her
conscience
by tidying up her room
putting her affairs in some kind of
order.
My name is on the envelope
and this is how it slips under my
lacy bras
and silk panties
tucks into a dark corner and rests
there awhile
until the time comes
to share this last moment of
Hannah’s
with the handful of others
who need to know.