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coughed up.
    But her words are poetic.
    Beautiful.
               Powerful.
                           Painful.
    Like she cut out a piece of herself
    and left it lying there on the paper,
    just so I’d know—
    I’m
    not
    alone.

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Jag is Sitting on the Windowsill Nearby
    He’s staring at the moon.
    Thousands of miles from here.
    I wonder if he’s thinking about
    the three goals he wrote for Roger’s exercise:
    * Get out of here without the family meeting.
    * Get out of here without the family meeting.
    * Get out of here without the family meeting.
    But the sad thing is nobody gets out
    of here without that almighty meeting.
    Especially when decking your dad
    is what got you here in the first place.

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Donya’s Staring at the Moon Too
    But she doesn’t call it the moon.
    She calls it Lunabella
    because that sounds like
    a sexy-hot girl who would
    meet her at Chicory’s
    and drink café mochas
    until they were both
    as happy as exclamation points,
    and they’d hold hands
    on top of the table
    not just underneath
    even when Donya’s
    stupid parental unit
    steamed in
    hotter than coffee
    ranting about how two girls
    holding hands was a sin.
    I ask Donya if that really happened.
    But she doesn’t answer.
    Instead she just says that Skylar
    can tell her so-called God
    to shove His so-called plans
    and stop messing up
    every minute of
    her so-called life !

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Jag Hops off the Window Sill
    “My father’s Higher Power was a lightbulb,” he says.
    “A 60-watt incandescent.”
    Jag tells us how he used to go to Al-Anon meetings
    before his father drank up all their savings
    and started talking with his fists.
    “AA lets you believe God can be anything or anyone,” he says.
    “Like God can be Buddha or a ceiling tile or even a lightbulb.
    It doesn’t really matter. As long as you believe that something
    is your Higher Power.
    I ask Jag if AA would let Colin Krusher be God.
    “I know Colin is more like a fallen TV angel, “ I say.
    “But he’s been resurrected four times on my favorite show
    and he’s the only angel who’s lasted through series nine
    so that pretty much makes him immortal, if you ask me.
    Plus, in real life, Colin founded a charity that gives away shoes
    and umbrellas and mattresses to old people who haven’t
    had a new bed in like half a century.
    So Colin deserves to be God way more than a 60-watt.”
    Jag nods and looks at the floor.
    “Yeah. I guess Colin could be God,” he says.
    “But just so you know,
    that lightbulb thing
    didn’t turn out too good for my dad.”

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Lights Out
    Donya’s grinding her teeth again.
    Like she’s mad at half the world.
    I bet my dad doesn’t have to
    listen to a racket like this
    when he’s at the Hyatt
    or the Holiday Inn
    a thousand miles
    away from home.
    I bet he props himself up
    on fluffy hypoallergenic pillows
    and drinks four-dollar bottled waters
    and watches the 10-p.m. news
    with all the comings and goings
    of some random city.
    And even though he’ll only
    stay there a day, maybe two,
    I bet Dad cares more
    about what’s happening
    in De Kalb, Illinois,
    or Madison, Wisconsin,
    than he cares about
    what’s happening
    to me.

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My Dream on the Second Night
    I’m on that dark country road again
    where the sky is purple
    and the air is so full of static
    the hairs rise up on my arms.
    Then