Skyscraping - Cordelia Jensen Page 0,12
larger quantities would cause disease. The theory behind homeopathic medicine is that “like cures like,” and that a substance that causes an illness in a healthy person might cure those symptoms in someone who is ill.
Sounds like a witch’s brew.
What’s the point of placing hope in that?
Hope as slim
as the sliver of moon
hanging
in this empty,
starless sky.
EXCAVATION
The cluttered dining room table,
a white-blank college essay.
April trots past with her
bottles and crystals.
Dad in the living room with James,
watching a documentary
on an archaeological dig in Mexico.
I return to the essay questions.
Try option one.
How would you describe the defining aspect of your identity?
I type on the blank page:
My dad was my mentor. My identity was formed by watching him.
April stands in front of the TV,
tells them about herbs, crystals,
Dad and James smile at her, touched.
I delete.
Start over.
James reads a label.
Dad says he’s working with the best doctors in the city.
I write:
I used to like living in the skies of Manhattan. I identified myself as a proud New Yorker.
April gets teary,
says she’s not giving up, this could save him,
Gloria has helped others.
Delete again.
They say they’ll think about it.
Them.
Like they are their own team.
Their own family.
April leaves everything on the table in front of them.
I turn back to the blank page,
punch the keys hard:
Identity is not a fixed thing, but something that evolves over time. Like an excavation, you never know what you might uncover about yourself or those around you. What might change you, forever. Beyond your own control.
I highlight the paragraph.
Shrink the font,
make it invisible.
As Dad and James turn their eyes back
to the TV,
I shut down my computer,
pick up the keyboard, slam it down,
don’t press save.
The archaeologists dust dirt from bones.
WHAT’S ALREADY GRAY
Back to school,
Dad’s bought us MetroCards,
a note lying on top of them:
Happy second semester!
I crumple it into a ball,
leave it on the kitchen counter.
April and I fight
the white wind
to 86th Street.
On the bus
she begs me to listen to her.
I say no,
she shouldn’t have told,
no, she shouldn’t get her hopes up.
I don’t say
it’ll be worse this way.
If she gets excited about it,
if she hopes for the impossible,
it could crush her.
Dylan slides in next to me,
smelling more like soap than cigs,
humming a Beastie Boys song,
drumming the rhythm on my knee.
He can tell the air’s frozen between April and me,
tries to bend it with song.
I don’t give in,
there’s no way out now.
The snow falls heavier
as we land on Park,
shuffle to the door,
fresh white snow covering
what’s already gray.
WINTER DUST
A cloudy first day back,
a useless Peer Mentorship meeting
on peer pressure.
Now, Yearbook.
I’m late.
Some lip-glossed girls say
the advisor was here to pick up
the sports pages, deadline today.
I look at the pile that’s half-done—
team pictures, no action shots,
players’ names, no font picked.
Picture my old self,
using all I have to fix this.
If only it were that easy.
The staff asks if they can just pick the fonts,
if they can use last year’s action pics,
I say whatever.
Winter dust coats the white office.
Like the streets and sky, it is graying too.
Who cares about capturing a present
that’s almost past?
Stars that look the brightest are
already dead and gone.
PLAYING PRETEND
Mom, Dad, the couch,
a crossword between them,
she gives him his pills,
crystals collect dust,
herbs remain in plastic, unopened.
Later, April sits with Mom,
each one preparing for her own show—
school play, glass exhibit.
April launches into her herbal plan.
Mom calls Celestial Treasures “darling.”
They ask me to join.
Say I’m busy, college apps.
But even if I didn’t have essays to write,
even if I wasn’t still grounded,
I’d be out with Chloe, at the Big Rock with Dylan.
I wouldn’t be playing this game of pretend,
playing family, playing doctor, playing healthy,
as if the world we knew hadn’t slipped
off its axis.
DELETE ALL
Focus in on my essay.
Again.
Option two: What was a pivotal moment in your life and how did it shape you?
The question screams at me.
I try: When my mom left us for Italy.
Highlight it. Turn it red. It seems like a joke compared to
The day I walked in on my dad in bed with his best friend.
Delete.
Try again: The day I found out my parents have always had an open marriage.
Italicize it.
Then, select it.
Delete.
The day I found out my dad was HIV Positive.
Bold.
A newspaper headline.
Wonder to myself:
Is my dad his disease?
Can protecting someone do more harm than good?
What’s the difference between a secret and a lie?
Move the cursor. Select all. Delete.
Instead, I write about scuba diving.
DARKENING SKY
It’s barely snowing now
but they say it’s coming.
In manila envelopes,
I hold tickets out of here.
Applications to three schools,
Dickinson, Kenyon, Bowdoin,
all the same and all complete,
all in the country, away from here,
away from the gray of New York City,
the city Dad loves to love,
the