You Know Me Well(51)

You’re so ready

for me to be ready.

But I’m not ready

to put on the clothes you’ve sewn me.

They’re beautiful.

I’m not really sure they’ll fit.

You hold me steady,

but I’m not ready.

Not ready to tell you why.

Not ready to be more scared

than I am right now.”

He is not looking up. He is looking at the paper. And when the time comes to turn the page, his hands are still shaking so much that he drops it. It slides behind him, lost.

Instead of stopping to pick it up in front of everyone else, he tries to continue from memory.

I’m ready to lose myself,

But—

I mean, I’m ready—

I’m not ready.

Now he looks at the audience. Not at me. Not at Taylor. At someone else. Anybody else.

I’m not ready

to do this,

to stand here

I think this is part of the poem. But maybe it isn’t part of the poem. Because Ryan stops. Freezes. Says, “I’m sorry,” puts down the mic, and walks—not runs, walks—out of the room.

Violet starts clapping. Other people join in. And I am a minute too late. I am frozen, too. Before I can get up, Taylor is up. Before I can follow Ryan, Taylor is following Ryan. Taylor is closer to the door. I freeze again. I look at Katie, but Katie’s not going to tell me to go. It’s Violet who tells me to go. Tells me to hurry.

So I stand up, even though Quinn is announcing the next poet, who is not me. People think it’s me, though, because of the timing of my standing up, and they’re even more confused when I head in the opposite direction from the stage, when I head out the door.

Ryan and Taylor haven’t gotten far. They’re right outside. Taylor has Ryan in his arms, is telling him he was amazing, that he was brave, that the first step is always, always the hardest. All the right things to say, only they’re in his voice, not mine. I stop heading toward them, but they’ve already heard me. They pull apart a little, look at me.

I am interrupting.

For some reason, it’s Taylor I find myself talking to. “I just wanted to see if he was okay,” I explain.

Taylor nods. Gets it.

“I’m fine,” Ryan says. “Really. I guess I’m not that much of an improviser.”

Neither, it seems, am I. I just stand there.

“We’ll be back in soon,” Taylor says.

“Oh yeah. Of course. See ya.”

I open the door and it makes what feels like a huge clatter, right in the middle of a really quiet poem. I don’t want to draw more attention to myself, so I stand there until the poet is finished—a good ten minutes later.

I make my way back to my table, expecting that Taylor and Ryan will follow on my heels. Taylor said they’d be back soon, after all. But they don’t come back. I see the friends at Taylor’s table checking texts and whispering to one another. News I don’t know.

I check my phone. Nothing.

Someone from Greer’s table takes the stage and recites a very funny poem called “Ode to Pee-wee Herman.” When it’s done, Quinn gets back on to say that since we’ve now gone through the list, we’re going to take a five-minute break—and in that five-minute break he wants to see at least three more people volunteer to spit out some words.

“Do you want to go?” Violet asks us.

I want to go, but I’m not sure I want to say I want to go.

Katie settles it by observing, “If we leave now, Quinn will kill us,” which is probably true.

So we sit there. Some of Taylor’s friends are up and talking to the people at the table next to ours, so I can’t tell Katie what happened in the hallway. I can sense she’s correctly assuming it wasn’t good.

Quinn comes over, and it’s while Violet and Katie are telling him how amazing his poem was that I look over to the stage area and see the lone piece of paper resting at the base of the back wall. The second page of Ryan’s poem. It seems wrong to leave it there, so I head over to get it. It’s facedown. I guess I could just fold it like that and never discover how the poem ended.

It’s not his diary, though. It’s something he was planning to read to everyone. So I figure it’s okay to look.

Only, after I’m done, it doesn’t feel okay.

I’m ready to lose myself, but I’m not ready to lose you.

I’m ready to find myself, But I’m not ready for you to know what I find.

If you want me to change, be ready for me to change.

I don’t think you’re ready for that.

I don’t think I’m ready for that.

Why do you have to risk the good things for the better things?

I’m not ready for the answer.

I know he’s gone—they’re gone—but I go out into the hall anyway. When I find he’s not there, I take out my phone again. But what can I say? That I’m ready for him to change? That I’m ready for him to do what he wants to do? The past few days have shown that’s not true.

I guess I’m not ready, either.

Quinn’s heading to the mic when I walk in. I put the second page of Ryan’s poem on the table. Katie’s eyes grow wider as she reads it. And they grow even wider when Quinn surprises us all by announcing, “Welcome back, bitches. The Queer Youth Poetry Slam is now spiked as punch to welcome Lehna to the mic!”