What Does Blue Feel Like? Read Online Free Page A

cracks,
    when your heart is breaking just a little
    and then
    there’s an ocean on your face, the pillow, your shirt,
    and your crying sounds like the howling
    of a wounded animal.
    You don’t mean to
    but you can’t help it.
    And this kind of crying is exhausting
    and,
    unlike the
    other kinds,
    you can’t
    stop
    crying, it just runs its course.
    And you know you’ve never cried like that before.
    And no one else has ever hurt quite like you do.

Barriers
    Back at school
    Char is sitting in class, watching everyone else
    not working,
    just watching.
    And she thinks, I am different
    from all of you
    and none of you
    has ever felt like this before.
    There is a barrier
    between me
    and all of you.
    Is it
    impenetrable?
Party girl
    There is another party for, of course, there is
    another weekend.
    Another excuse to get drunk
    and forget.
    Because everyone has something they’d rather
    not think about.
    And when you’re not thinking, you can breathe .

So goddamn small
    Char and Jim go for a walk,
    not for sex, as everyone said when they left.
    This party is conveniently situated near the beach.
    They stumble their way down the footpath
    acting sober for the sake of
    passers-by
    even though it’s way past midnight,
    and there aren’t actually any passers-by.
    A small dog barks and they giggle,
    run the rest of the way
    down the street and onto the sand.
    Char shivers in the cool air and Jim
    pulls her into him, wraps his arms around her.
    She relaxes into him, and thinks,
    he smells like beer.
    They stand together,
    looking up at the stars.
    Jim drunkenly says, ‘They’re so beautiful. They make me
    feel so good. Aren’t they good, Char?’
    Char doesn’t reply for a long time.
    Finally, she says, ‘Yeah, they’re pretty. But they make me
    feel so goddamn small.’
    Eventually, they turn and make their way back
    to the party.

Skipping school
    Char doesn’t go to school on Monday.
    She pretends to be sick
    and it’s not exactly a lie, not really.
    She’s still hungover
    but her parents don’t know she drinks
    so they think she’s actually ill.
    She doesn’t feel well, truthfully,
    but she hasn’t in a long time.
    Â 
    She lies in bed,
    willing herself to get out.
    It’s not that hard, she knows,
    but it’s so much easier just to lie still.
    Â 
    Eventually,
    she pulls herself up
    and outside with a coffee.
    A butterfly comes,
    flies away,
    and comes back,
    landing on her hand.
    Char is mesmerised.
    It is so pretty.
    She begins to look around.

‘What about you, little lady?’
    The next afternoon,
    Jim goes with her to the
    tattoo parlour.
    The guy there has a tattoo all down one arm
    with a picture of a lady’s face on it, and the words Annie
    May sketched out just below the picture.
    He has just finished a tattoo on a skinny man
    with a moustache.
    Moustache proudly tells them that he’s just gotten initials
    tattooed on his fingers,
    which is actually illegal
    but he knows Tony is so skilled, and they’re such good
    mates, he was just the person for the job.
    Tattoo Tony turns to her. ‘What about you, little lady?’
    Char grimly pulls a crumply bit of paper out of her pocket.
    It is a sketch of the butterfly.
    She wants the tattoo just above her bum, where her
    parents won’t ever see it.
    Hell, they’d ground her for life
    if they knew she was even in here.
    Jim signs the consent form, because he’s eighteen.
    It’s not so bad, not really.
    It sounds like a dentist’s drill
    and the pain is just like getting stung by a bee,
    a million times over.

So fucking stupid
    I missed an exam when I had that sickie on Monday
    and
    because I don’t have a doctor’s certificate, I
    failed.
    But
    I reckon I would’ve anyway.
    I’m so fucking stupid.
Signs
    The school counsellor calls Char into her office
    because of her grades.
    Because of the blackness under her eyes
    that