are better friends now, too.

What Color Roses?

Zoey’s mom drives me home afterward,

and Zoey comes along in the car.

I ask if we can make a quick stop

at King Soopers to get my mother some flowers.

I brought twenty dollars saved from my allowance

just in case.

“I’m going to get her red roses,”

I tell them.

“My mother told me that red is the color

for passionate love.”

“Passionate doesn’t mean

lots and lots of love,”

Zoey says.

“It means being in love.

You know, like…”

She makes a kissy face.

I guess all my best friends

do need to explain things to me.

Now I don’t know what color roses to get.

Yellow is the cheeriest, but yellow roses

made my mother cry that other time when she thought

her boyfriend didn’t love her the way she wanted him to.

That last thing I want is to make my mother cry.

So I buy an already-made bouquet of mixed flowers

of lots of different kinds and colors,

hoping she’ll know it means

I’m feeling too many things

for any one kind or color of flower

to be able to express them all.

The Scariest Thing You’ll Ever Have to Do

Walk home from school alone

because you no longer have a best friend

to walk with you.

Know that when you open the door

she is going to be there,

your mother who’s coming home

from the hospital

after trying to kill herself.

Wonder what she’s going to say to you.

Wonder what you’re going to say to her,

your mother who spent her whole life

studying languages before they would be lost forever.

What language is there anywhere in the world

that would have the words for this?

If there ever was

such a language,

it has to be one

that got lost

a long,

long

time

ago.

I Make Myself Open the Door

I smell beef bourguignon in the oven.

Beef bourguignon?

I hear Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony

playing at full volume.

Mozart?

Are we supposed to pretend

this never happened?

She comes out of the kitchen,

wiping her hands on a dish towel.

“Did you have a good day, honey?”

She is all smiles

until

she

sees

my

face.

Now All the Words I’ve Been Keeping Inside Come Rushing Out

“NO!”

My father is behind her,

shaking his head at me,

holding up both hands

as if he’s a traffic cop

and I’m the speeding car

about to crash into the barricade.

“NO, I DID NOT HAVE A GOOD DAY!

I DID NOT HAVE A GOOD DAY

BECAUSE OF YOU!”

I can’t stop now.

I’m a speeding car with no brakes.

I don’t care if I crash into the barricade.

I want to smash it as hard as I can.

I want to smash it

into a million, billion, trillion pieces.