Schutz - I Dont Want to Be Crazy

Each day another friend leaves for college.
Yesterday Abe, today Claire,
tomorrow Matt.
When its my turn,
nobody will be left
to say good-bye to me.

Its crazy that Im leaving
everything and everyone I know,
but there are things I want to leave behind,
things I dont have room for
like this version of me,
like Jason.
Sometimes I call him my boyfriend,
but I know better.

Im excited to leave,
to start something new,
but it scares me.
And what scares me even more
is that things are supposed to get harder than this
harder than living in my parents house,
harder than dealing with Jason,
harder than high school.
I cant be a kid anymore.

All my neighborhood friends and I
go to one party after another,
drinking, getting high
the same stupid stuff we always do
in the playground of P.S. 98
or down at the field.
Now we call them good-bye parties,
but theyre really just another excuse to get high.

I am sitting behind the register at the theater
looking out the window
at the cars speeding by,
thinking, I cant believe its finally over.
I am out of high school.

Ill never again have to wear that polyester kilt
with the stapled hem and melted hole
where Audrey accidentally ashed on me.
Ill never get detention for wearing combat boots
or have to take the Q46 bus halfway across Queens.

I dont ever have to sit in the senior lounge
wishing I could play my
music without Justin calling Tori Amos Tour of My Anus.
I dont have to pretend to like people
who are assholes and call me flat-chested.

I dont have to be treated like crap
just because Im not popular.

Applying to college was a disaster.
My parents had their choice for me,
and I had mine.
But since they were paying the bills,
there was no room for compromise.

We fought about my application essay for weeks.
It had to be perfect
revised and reread dozens of times,
marked up in red pen
until it was bloody.

In the end my personal statement
was more my mothers than my own
and fiction became fact
because it sounded better.

Its been like this
for as long as I can remember
writing and rewriting homework,
book reports, and papers
until they were not mine
until they were perfect.

I dont understand
how my teachers never noticed.
How could they believe
all those words were mine?
Every time I handed in a paper
I hoped Id get caught.

A week before I leave,
Jason picks me up after work
and we go down to the woods
at the edge of the bay
where theres a washed-up diving platform.
The moon is bright enough
that we can find the path,
but I still hold his hand
let him guide me
around branches and rocks.

When we get to the platform
its covered with slugs.
We kick them off and lie down.
It doesnt matter
that there are trails of ooze.
It doesnt matter
that it is low tide
and the mosquitoes are out.
All that matters
is that his hands cover me
like my clothes should.

In the morning I wake up, shower,
see that I am covered in bites, some bleeding
from where I must have scratched them in the night.
I spend the day at work
counting bites, rubbing on cortisone,
and thinking of Jasons hands.

It sounds nice,
but its not.
It sounds easy,
but it isnt.
The next day Jason is a half hour late
to get me from work.
No phone call.
No explanation.
Just like always,
I am an afterthought.
Just like the night he promised
wed be alone and showed up with two friends
ready to smoke a blunt.
Just like the afternoon
he said he was going to pick me up
after his laundry finished drying
and never showed
because he fell asleep.

Its been like this ever since Christmas,
when he kissed me
and then told me hed been waiting
a long time to do that.
Ever since then
Ive been waiting
for him to do something, anything
to show he cares,
for him to be the one to ask me to hang out,
waiting for the phone to ring,
checking to see if the phone is broken,
or if someones already on the line.
Im glad Im leaving.
I dont want to wait anymore.

Im surrounded by stacks of towels,
linens still in the package,
jeans and sweaters,
jumbo boxes of tampons,
soap, and shampoo.
Im listening to Ani DiFranco so loud
my parents are going to start to yell.

By the end of the week
everything needs to be packed
in these giant plastic tubs
like leftovers
and in garbage bags
like trash.

Everything I own,
everything I care about, is at my feet:
a Valentines Day card from Jason
that reads I wish for you,
a collage Claire made for my birthday
of handpainted portraits of the two of us,
a photo of me and Audrey
sitting in the back row of the Q79 bus,
a drawing I made in 1983.

I cant wait
to get out of this room
with its stupid flowered wallpaper,
out of this house
with all its rules,
out of this neighborhood
where everyone knows each other.

I try folding things neatly,
even though Im a slob.
I am starting something new.
I want to do this right.

A couple of nights before I leave
Jason tries again to get me to have sex with him.
We are in his bed when he gives me a speech
about how I wont want to lose my virginity
to some stranger in college.
He reminds me
that he is here,
next to me,
safe.

But Ive already given him everything else.
This is the only thing I
have left.

Im leaving tomorrow
and saying good-bye to Jason tonight.
I dont think I can handle it
if he kisses me.
It will only make things harder.
It will only make me cry
to kiss him,
to feel the emptiness.

I wonder if he feels it.
I wonder if he even cares.

What a fitting ending with Jason.
No hug.
No kiss.
Nothing.

Just like always, he was late
and I was pissed.
This time it was the weeds fault.
It knocked him on his ass, hard.
He was pale, almost green.
He could barely speak.
His best friend Nate was there
to confirm the story.
I could see in Jasons face
that it was the truth,
but it was too late.

I cant fall asleep.
Its like the night before camp,
except I dont come home after six weeks.
Its like the night before an exam
that I havent studied for enough.
Its like the night before my birthday,