Addie on the Inside Read Free Page A

Silly
Walks!” and start slicing his legs through
the air like a pair of psychotic scissors,
unhinged and devil-may-care, shouting,
“Keep up, Addie, it’s Monty Python Time!”
    I could never keep up with Joe, and yet
somehow we’d always end up with our arms
wrapped around each other’s waists, kicking
like the Rockettes, or swaying like a couple
of drunks before we even knew what that
meant. Now I walk home thinking the kinds
of serious thoughts Joe helped me to forget.

Grounded
    When I get home from school,
there in the front yard my dad
is swinging the three-year-old
from two houses down around
and around. She has one arm
and one leg splayed, reaching
for the sky, her eyes squeezed
tight, her mouth open wide,
crying, “Look at me, I’m flying!”
    â€œHey, Addie,” my dad says as I
say nothing back but run inside
to throw myself on the sofa
and cry. It’s ridiculous, I know,
how my body aches to be lifted
and flown. But I will never fly
again. I’m grounded. I’m grown.

Kennedy and Johnson
    Cats have radar
for girls who are thirteen
and in tears.
They come out from hiding
or wake from their naps
to rub up against you
or jump in your lap.
And even though they themselves don’t cry,
they understand distress.
They never ask why
or what’s going on,
they just present themselves
as if to say,
We’re here now, you’ll be okay.
Kennedy and Johnson
(those are my cats)
are older than me
and wiser, too.
They don’t cry
over what’s lost
and never again will be.
They don’t cry
that they never had a dad
who made them fly
    like me.

10 Haikus : 2 Cats
    I’ve known Kennedy
my whole life. “And who are you?”
his eyes sometimes ask.
    He bathes his privates,
then sweetly comes to kiss me.
“In your dreams,” I say.
    The pillow was his.
The sofa he would share, but
the pillow was his.
    Kennedy looked at
the new cat. He hissed. He spat.
And then: That was that.
    Kennedy’s pillow
Kennedy soon discovered
was perfect for two.
    Now they curl in sleep,
deep in contentment and dreams,
their heads tucked under.
    They demand their food
in the same high voices, then
reject our choices.
    Like bookends they sit
on each arm of the sofa,
and we are the books.
    Johnson loves to lick.
Kennedy loves to be licked.
Two cats in heaven.
    What must it be like
to move through your days always
in step with a friend?

The Girl in the Mirror
    The girl in the mirror holds her lifted hand
at the back of her neck, fingering the unseen
clasp to the necklace she has worn every day
since Christmas. She considers her plain face
framed by a drape of straight falling hair: no
drama there, more a face that might be found
on the cover of a novel set on the prairie
than on a poster for a movie about, say,
vampire lust.
    Why must she have her mother’s face? Her
mother’s mother, neither plain nor a beauty,
was always pretty and still is, in an old-
people sort of way. The girl in the mirror
furrows her forehead thinking about her grand-
mother’s arrival the next day. She loves her
grandmother but always feels a little smaller
in her presence. Does her mother feel
that way, too? Does her mother see herself
as ordinary, plain?
    My fingers unclasp the necklace. It falls away
into my hand. The girl in the mirror smiles
as we remember the boy who first clicked the
clasp, stepped back to check it out, and said,
“You look nice.”

Pretty
    My dad tells me I’m pretty,
then laughs and says,
“I guess all dads think
their daughters are pretty.”
    Thanks, Dad.

Questions I Ask Myself in the Dark
    What does Becca Wrightsman want?
Should I let her give me a makeover?
Why would I do that?
Why am I even thinking about it?
Why did Becca have to move back here?
Why did she have to change?
Does everyone have to change?
Does DuShawn like Tonni more than me?
What does he see in me, anyway?
If he breaks up with me,
will I have to give back the necklace?
Why