so I can read and breathe first.

When I find my courage

to call,

the phone rings

and rings

and rings.

This voice mailbox is full.

I call again,

but it’s the same every time.

I Pack

more comics,

graph paper,

and a few new dice

for the game.

I stare at the cover of

The Diet Book and ask,

Where does it end, Doctor? Do I just do this forever,

until I waste away into nothing?

What happens

when I can’t find myself

anymore?

A Date

In the middle of packing,

I hear Gretchen’s

voice in my head

and think about how fun it is

to talk to her,

about how she says she loves my voice,

how much I like hers,

how funny she is,

how I can listen to her without trying,

and how she hears what I say,

how we promised to meet

somewhere in East Bay,

some mall or maybe Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley,

where we can go to old record stores.

We haven’t even met.

She doesn’t know that I’m fat,

that I might

not look like I sound.

I call, and she starts talking right away.

She tells me about Duran Duran.

Before I know it, she’s singing

“Hungry Like the Wolf,”

and she expects me to sing the low parts,

and I do, and we sing on the phone,

and it doesn’t even feel weird.

Pretty soon she’s telling me

about Lisa, how they knew each

other in elementary school,

before Lisa moved to Mill Valley.

Gretchen promises me again,

over and over,

that soon we’ll meet.

I say, Cool.

When? she asks, suddenly serious.

When?

Yes, when?

I don’t know,

I say, but we can

make a date before summer’s over.…

Great! It’s a date, she says.

Her words snap the spell,

and I remember that she’s

never seen me before.

I’m kind of a big guy,

I tell her.

I always have been.

Okay, she says.

I’m tall, way taller than

most girls I know,

sometimes they make fun of me.

And I have lots of freckles.

We make plans to go to the record store for sure,

find the Prince album she’s looking for.

I tell her that for my bar mitzvah

I might get a vintage record player.

Let’s sing one more song! she says. Prince!

Let’s sing “Purple Rain.”

That song is rad.

I tell her it’s rad.

We sing it until I hear her mom

telling her to get off the phone.

Missed

I look at the old note

on the bulletin board,

the Post-it hanging by one

sticky edge.

It reminds me

that I had another

appointment yesterday!

I didn’t remember,

missed it by a whole day.

Knots in my stomach.

How could I let this happen?

It’s over, I think.

I let him down.

The House Call

I sit in my room.