for him to take the tape off my face.
Do you want it misaligned? he asked,
and I knew instantly that he'd been
unpopular in high school, which was why
he'd branded me with this scarlet Loser
to walk the halls with. It wasn't even
the kind of bruise guys find brave.
I complained to Amber, told her I hadn't
deserved this. After all, I'd only been trying
to warn that boy Andy. I remembered
what her sister had done to his brother.
I remember Mike being so sad that he couldn't
understand when I tried to comfort him.
I wasn't saying anything that wasn't a fact.
I had his best interests at heart.
Amber just nodded, told me I was right.
I don't even think she was listening.
And while I know I should have been
grateful for her unquestioning loyalty—
she was simply assuming I was right, after all—
it still got to me. I reminded her that I was
the one who had warned her about Jakob.
Sure enough, he cheated on Brenda
two weeks later. That could have been you,
I reminded her. She sighed, said whatever.
I tried to be a vigiliant person. Keeping watch,
confronting people with the truth, even if
it hurt them. In the long run, it was always better
to know. That's what I believed. The poison
cure. Then one day, right after my bandage
had come off, I got to English class and found
something written on my desk: YOU ARE UNABLE TO COMMISERATE. Other words had been written there, too. But I hadn't noticed them until this sentence appeared.
I looked around. Who had done this
to me? Why would they say that?
I wanted to stand up right there and say
I am a very commiserating person,
thank you very much. But luckily
I stopped myself. I realized that the words
weren't meant for me. Just something
written on a desk, some jerk venting.
That should have been that. But the words
stayed with me. When I sat down the next day
there was something else: YOU ARE HAPPY
EVEN IF YOU ARE AFRAID TO ADMIT IT.
And the opposite happened. I realized that
the words weren't meant for me,
and that struck me just as hard. I took the bottled water out of my bag
and tried to wipe the words away. It was no use.
No matter how hard I tried, they wouldn't leave
me alone. I saw people looking, wondering why
I was attacking my desk with a wet tissue. I stopped.
I knew Amber had English the period before me,
so I asked her if she'd seen anything. She said
yes, this obnoxious goth girl liked to write things
all over her desk. Does she know me? I asked,
and Amber looked at me like I was out of my mind.
I got to English early the next day, and saw
who she meant. This depressing girl, so far beyond
a makeover. I stood there by the door as she left,
waiting for some kind of recognition. When she
passed by, I was relieved, and a little disappointed.
But there it was on the desk again—YOU ARE
FOOLISH IN YOUR UNHAPPINESS. This time
I just snapped. Why is she doing this? As I felt
my unhappiness collecting in my throat. Why
am I doing this? It still hurt to breathe sometimes,
with the broken nose and all. Now it was a different
kind of hurt. I felt foolish, yes. Foolish because
I felt alone in this. How many times had I told
someone The truth hurts. Without ever really
knowing what it felt like, until that stupid desk.
I switched seats. I tried to block it out. I looked
at the boy who took my place, and he didn't seem
fazed. Then the words started to appear other places.
Sitting in a stall, doing my business, when suddenly
I look up and see YOU ARE NOT WHO YOU BELIEVE
YOU ARE. The same handwriting. Waiting for me.
I thought of that question—Who do you think you are?—
and realized that it's not one you ever get a chance
to answer. I tried to answer it, right there in the stall.
I am a good friend. I am a truth seeker. I am a
bitch. A gossip. Someone who gets hit with a tray
in the middle of the cafeteria and gets no sympathy.
And I thought If I'm not any of these things, what am I?
I tried to talk to Amber about it, but she said flat out
that I shouldn't let any loser's graffiti get into my head.
They're all out to get us, she said. And when I asked why,
she just sighed and said, Because we're better, I guess.
We have what they want. Two weeks ago, the same words
would have come from my mouth. Now they seemed empty.
I didn't feel any better. YOU WEAR TOO MANY MASKS
was written over my locker the following day. This time,
I had an answer. I thought, No, I only wear one.
People were starting to talk about the writing. Everyone
seemed to think it was about them. A personal attack.
The old me had to admire the way this girl had managed
to get under everyone's skin all at once.
Some days it was just one word. PLEASE or ANYTHING.
One day it was PROTECT ME FROM WHAT I WANT.
What I wanted was everything to go back to when my
nose was straight and my behavior unquestioned (at least
by me). I saw Andy and that girl who hit me walking the halls
together, happy. I saw her balance his books on her head
while he looked for something in his locker. I could have
knocked them off as I passed. One simple mean reach.
But instead I stayed in the background, alone.
I went the long way through school, trying to collect
all the phrases. I wondered if the goth girl kept a list.
YOU SHOULD NOT WALK AWAY QUITE YET.
When I found that one, in a corner outside the auditorium,
I sat down and stared. Because what I wanted
to walk away from was myself. In fact, I felt I'd already
started. I took a bottle of nail polish out of my purse
and traced the letters. This sophomore passed by and gave me
a strange look. I told him to get lost. Then I dipped
the brush in again, turned a W red. The smell of the
nail polish made me think of Amber and the rest of
my friends. I missed them, but in theory. It wasn't
them I missed, but friendship. QUITE YET.
I learned the goth girl's name when the principal called
her down to the office. Charlotte Marshall. The words
stopped coming. I didn't know what to do. I sat
at the same lunch table, I went to the same classes.
I stopped talking and nobody noticed, not unless
there was something spiteful to be said. Amber asked me
if I had gone on medication. Liza offered me some of
her own. My mother took me shopping. I didn't
know what to do with the four shirts I bought.
Well, I knew to wear them. But it all seemed part
of the mask. Was there anything underneath?
A few days later, I saw Charlotte walking down
the hallway. I saw writing on her arm, and before
I knew what I was doing, I reached out
f
or her wrist. YOU ARE IMPLICATED, it said.
And suddenly I was asking her What do you mean?
She looked at me, not knowing. Why are you
doing this? She shrugged and I let go of her wrist.
I was shocked: she didn't have any more answers
than I did. She just knew how to raise the questions.
That night, I locked myself in the bathroom.
I let the water run, stood in front of the mirror.
Then I took out the box of Crayola markers
I'd had in my desk since I was a little kid.
Most of them had dried out, but the green still wrote.
I started on the inside of my arms. YOU ARE
IMPLICATED. YOU ARE FOOLISH
IN YOUR UNHAPPINESS. YOU ARE NOT
WHO YOU BELIEVE YOU ARE. YOU WEAR
TOO MANY MASKS. I tried her handwriting,
but ended up with my own. PROTECT ME
and I ran out of room. I turned over my arm
FROM WHAT I WANT.
My legs were next. In big letters. YOU ARE
UNABLE TO COMMISERATE. YOU ARE
UNABLE TO WALK AWAY. YOU HAVE
NO ONE. YOU ARE NO ONE. I had forgotten
what else she'd written. I was on my own now.
YOU ARE FULL OF SPITE. YOUR FRIENDS
ARE NOT REAL. YOU HAVE PUT YOURSELF
IN THIS CORNER. THERE IS NO ESCAPE.
The steam rising now. I took off my shirt
and skirt, stood there in my underwear.
BITCH. LIAR. LOSER. UGLY. SAD.
I wish I could say it felt good, but it felt
horrible. STOP CRYING. STOP IT NOW.
YOU WILL GO TO COLLEGE AND
EVERYBODY WILL HATE YOU.
THIS IS THE TRUTH. DEAL WITH IT.
All of these things had been inside me.
Now they were spelled out, upside down
so I could read them. Backwards in the mirror.
I was ready to put down the pen, give up.
But there was something else inside me, too.
YOU ARE NOT BEING FAIR, it wrote.
YOU CAN BE LOYAL. YOU CAN BE
STRONG. YOU ARE SMART. YOU KNOW
HOW THINGS WORK. The words were
beginning to overlap. The marker was fading
with every new letter. YOU KNOW WHAT
YOU HAVE TO DO on the bottom of my foot.
Then I did something one of the metalheads
at school always does. HATE on the knuckles
of one hand. LOVE across the other.
I laughed when I saw myself in the mirror.
I stared long and hard, so I would remember.
Then I slipped into the tub. The water turned
green instantly. I drained it out, let new water
in. It was so hot I could barely tell the difference
between my sweat and the steam. But I got
used to it. I looked down at myself and most of
the words were still there. I closed my eyes and
I remembered what it was like when I was younger.
The night before the first day of school, I would
stand under the shower and make all kinds of
resolutions. I will make new friends. I will
be more popular. I will get good grades.
And I swear I can remember, I will be
a better person. At some point I stopped doing this.
Maybe I forgot. Or maybe I knew the resolutions
never carried over when I got to school.
I WILL BE A BETTER PERSON. I know
it's hard to believe. From me. From the bitch
who got pummeled with an orange tray.
But I knew—I hadn't become the worst kind
of person yet. I had to believe that. I took
down the washcloth and started scouring my skin.
Floods of soap. My skin raw under the rub.
The words vanishing, the letters erased.
Only a green-tinted reminder. A ring around
the tub once it emptied. A spot or two on my body
that I'd missed. On purpose, for now.
I did not apologize to Elizabeth, but I stopped
saying she owed me an apology. I did not ditch my friends.
I simply tried to shift the tone a little. It was hard
sometimes, not to attack. But I felt some strength
in the holding back. YOU WILL BE A BETTER
PERSON. I wrote it wherever I could. What's
gotten into you? Amber asked, looking at me
seriously for the first time in ages. And I said,
It's actually something that's gotten out of me.
She didn't understand, and I honestly didn't
expect her to. I have no more idea now of
who I am than I did before. But at least I know
that. And I'm starting to figure out who I want
to be. Whether it was the tray, Charlotte's words,
or something else that caused it to happen, all I can
say is this: Being a bitch is easy. It's finding
the alternative that's hard.
the grocer's daughter
the first delivery comes at six in the morning.
usually I sleep through its arrival,
leaning into the noise like a pillow,
thinking of it as a sound that's passing by.
but recently I have been rushing
to the window, lifting
the shade slightly to see him
get out of the truck, say hello
to my father, and lift the boxes into the store.
one day I woke up early and he was there.
one day I woke up early and kept waking early.
if I am very quiet I can hear him speaking Korean to my father.
it is not a language I learned.
instead it was grown inside me.
they talk about cantaloupes and tissue paper,
other grocers and their misfortunes.
sometimes he asks after my mother but never about me.
my father would not tell him about me, unless there was a reason to boast.
from my window, he is the most handsome boy.
he cannot be much older than me.
because of my parents, I cannot imagine
his parents would let him get out of school.
but I have never seen a book
near him or heard him talk about classes.
he must be older than me, but not by much.
this handsome boy is the one I pictured
when I was a girl and imagined
walking down a red-carpet aisle, delicate
blossoms in my hair, white as hope.
I come home from school
and I think of him
as I move the old milk cartons to the front
as I take the cigarette boxes from their cartons
as I sweep the floor
I do not ask his name.
as my father checks my homework
as my mother weighs the clove of garlic
as we pull the metal over our windows
as we tie the day's newspapers and throw them away
I ask for nothing
but these thoughts.
Clara catches me in my notebook.
I am tracing what I see when I close my eyes.
“who is that?” she asks, and then
she turns him so he is looking at her
and says, “that's really amazing.”
even after I close him in my book
she asks me to tell her
through lunch and after school
so by the time we get to the store
I have told her what little I know
and she is happy for me.
she gives me that look of advice
and says, “you should talk to him.”
but he is gone by sunrise.
the morning after that
I get dressed early and move closer.
I am in the back room
on the other side of the door
breathing so loud I am sure he will hear
breathing the beat of my heart
as my father carries boxes
and makes morning jokes.
I see the boy in the space between the hinges
and that is enough like touching
for me to be happy.
Clara is always telling me about boys
the ones who are worthy of liking
and the rest who will disappoint you to tears.
I have felt things for other boys,
felt without falling.
friendship with Jed, because he was nice to me
flirtation with Michael, because he was Korean and safe
fluster for Simon, because he was not Korean and dangerous.
but none of those other boys were like this one.
nothing has ever felt this pure.
“you were up early,” I tell my father,
tempting fate, tempting knowledge.
and he says, “you should get
some sleep, you need your sleep.”
no mention of his early
companion, the boy who is not
his son, but could be his son in the future.
I am memorizing his shirts.
I am seeing the way he bends as he lifts.
on mornings when there is frost
I wipe a trail for him across the glass.
I see everything from above.
one day I will wake up and
he won't be there. he will
disappear as he appeared and I will cry like a death
foretold. part of what I feel for him is missing him.
part of what I know is that distance is as hard as it is easy.
I should talk to him.
I know I should talk to him
but I do not talk to him.
I watch him from afar and love him.