(I make a sound like metal against metal, heavy, a rusty uhm. The neighbor girl used to ask you what that noise was when you snuck her into your bedroom while your parents were at work. Yeah, a rusty uhm and a cat scratching at the door. I guess she must have clamped her knees together too. Girls, we�re all the same. Yeah, all the same.

So I make this sound, this really quiet sound, I think it might be dying air, or my teeth grinding together and I don�t even realize it�s rattling out until a crowd of people has turned around to look at me. That�s nice. Actually the crowds of people are in my head or drawn onto napkins, and nobody looks at me when I�m walking and that makes me happiest. I hear them anyway, clamoring for something to love. Something that they insist I have. Something I can�t find. Head up, neck down. Uhm.

We painted the porch swing with our names, flowers, and wrote best friends forever somewhere on it, one summer. I wonder what happened to her. Pushing back and forth, the hooks that held it up sighing against the metal links.

I�m just making notes.

To be the waiting one: Light comes in at a harsh angle and messes up the sheets, pulls them off the mattress. Maybe I did that, maybe it was me and not the cold air that�s been dancing with the eighty-degree weather. I walk around all day, thinking about what your bed sheets were like, what your spine resembled. I think about you a lot, still, though I know I shouldn�t anymore. It�s my chest that misses you most, but it�s my mouth that bares the brunt of that hurt. My teeth are getting lonely without anything to click, clack like a typewriter�s keys against. I used to like to hear myself talk, now it doesn�t seem worth it, without you to laugh at my jokes and answer my questions.

Tell me about being quiet. Tell me how to make these whispers of mine not scream so much. My blood is singing, it�s summer.)

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