This Girl: A Novel

time
    Call it our culture or society
    It doesn’t matter to me ’cause neither one rhymes
    A time where most people don’t want to listen
    Our throats wait like matchsticks waiting to catch fire
    Waiting until we can speak
    No patience to listen
    But this poem is long
    It’s so long, in fact, that during the time of this poem
    You could’ve done any number of other wonderful things
    You could’ve called your father
    Call your father
    You could be writing a postcard right now
    Write a postcard
    When was the last time you wrote a postcard?
    You could be outside
    You’re probably not too far away from a sunrise or a sunset
    Watch the sun rise
    Maybe you could’ve written your own poem
    A better poem
    You could have played a tune or sung a song
    You could have met your neighbor
    And memorized their name
    Memorize the name of your neighbor
    You could’ve drawn a picture(or, at least, colored one in)
    You could’ve started a book
    Or finished a prayer
    You could’ve talked to God
    Pray
    When was the last time you prayed?
    Really prayed
    This is a long poem
    So long, in fact, that you’ve already spent a minute with it
    When was the last time you hugged a friend for a minute?
    Or told them that you love them?
    Tell your friends you love them
    . . . no, I mean it,
    tell them
    Say, I love you
    Say, you make life worth living
    Because that is what friends do
    Of all of the wonderful things that you could’ve done
    During this very, very long poem
    You could have connected
    Maybe you are connecting
    Maybe we’re connecting
    See, I believe that the only things that really matter
    In the grand scheme of life are
    God and people
    And if people are made in the image of God
    Then when you spend your time with people
    It’s never wasted
    And in this very long poem
    I’m trying to let a poem do what a poem does:
    Make things simpler
    We don’t need poems to make things more complicated
    We have each other for that
    We need poems to remind ourselves of the things that really matter
    To take time
    A long time
    To be alive for the sake of someone else for a single moment
    Or for many moments
    ’Cause we need each other
    To hold the hands of a broken person
    All you have to do is meet a person
    Shake their hand
    Look in their eyes
    They are you
    We are all broken together
    But these shattered pieces of our existence don’t have to be a mess
    We just have to care enough to hold our tongues sometimes
    To sit and listen to a very long poem
    A story of a life
    The joy of a friend and the grief of a friend
    To hold and be held
    And be quiet
    So, pray
    Write a postcard
    Call your parents and forgive them and then thank them
    Turn off the TV
    Create art as best as you can
    Share as much as possible, especially money
    Tell someone about a very long poem you once heard
    And how afterward it brought you to them
    SHE WIPES ANOTHER tear from her eye when the performer steps away from the microphone. She begins clapping with the rest of the crowd, completely engrossed in the atmosphere. When she finally relaxes against me again, I take her hand in mine. We’ve been here close to two hours now and I’m sure she’s tired, based on the week she’s had. Besides, I never stay for all of the performances, since I have work on Fridays.
    I begin to stand up to lead her out of the booth when the emcee makes one last appeal for performers. She turns to me and I can see her thoughts written clearly across her face.
    “Will, you can’t bring me here and not perform. Please do one? Please, please, please?”
    I had no intention of doing a poem tonight. At all. But oh, my God—that look in her eyes. She’s really going to make me do this, I can already tell. There’s no way I can say no to those eyes. I lean my head against the back of the booth and laugh. “You’re killing me, Lake. Like I said, I don’t really have anything new.”
    “Do something old then,” she suggests. “Or do all these people make you nervous?”
    She has no idea how often I perform and how natural it feels to me now. It’s almost as natural as breathing. I haven’t been nervous about taking the stage since the first time I took it five years ago.
    Until now, anyway.
    I lean in closer and look her directly in the eyes. “Not all of them. Just one of them.”
    Our faces are so incredibly close right now; it would be so easy to do it. Just a couple more inches and I could taste her. Her smile fades and she bites her bottom lip as her gaze slowly drops to my