Every Last Word

by Tamara Ireland Stone

“How many thoughts does the brain automatically deliver in a single day?” Mom moves on to facts to help me center myself. “Seventy thousand,” I whisper as tears splash onto my jeans. “That’s right. Do you act on seventy thousand thoughts a day?” I shake my head. “Of course you don’t. This thought was one in seventy thousand. It’s not special.” “It’s not special.”

I’ll be Samantha again. And more than anything, I’ll be missing Sam.

“You look fantastic,” Mom says as I step into the kitchen.

I felt this strange charge whenever the last digit hit the number three.

“Don’t worry about it. You did great.”

I’m on the diving block, staring into lane three, running my thumb across the scratchy surface three times, waiting for the whistle to blow.

I mean, it isn’t always them. Sometimes it’s me. I just don’t always know when it’s them and when it’s me, you know?”

He sang and his words were beautiful and clear, not broken in any way. Nothing about him was broken.

‘That which does not kill us makes us stronger.’”

“Mistakes. Trial and error. Same thing. Mistakes are how we learned to walk and run and that hot things burn when you touch them. You’ve made mistakes all your life and you’re going to keep making them.”

“The trick is to recognize your mistakes, take what you need from them, and move on.”

“I can’t move on.” “You can’t beat yourse...

“Then this particular mistake has done its job. Forgive yourself and move on,

“I forgive myself,” I finally say, my voice cracking on each word.

It takes effort, but I sit up straight and look right at her. “Every last word.”

“I’m going to show you something that will change your whole life.”

“It’s not like they were stolen.” “Of course not. They were simply relocated.”

“We think those places matter. We think they’re worth sharing, you know? Because when you share them, they become part of the poem.”

I like to know where I stand with people, and I figure I owe them the same courtesy.

I spend the rest of sixth period and all seventh reading the walls of Poet’s Corner. The poems here are silly, heartbreaking, hilarious, sad, and many are absolutely incredible. They’re about people who don’t care enough and people who care too much, people you trust and people who turn on you, hating school, loving your friends, seeing the beauty in the world. Sprinkled among them are heavier ones about depression and addiction, self-mutilation and various forms of self-medication. But most of them are about love. Wanting it. Missing it. Actually being in it.

Then I let everything go.

Out of words. Out of thoughts. It feels so good to be this empty. It’s so peaceful.

The walls look a little bit different now. The colors are brighter, the textures richer. Even the penmanship feels personal, almost intimate, like all these words on all these scraps of paper are here especially for me. I’ve read these poems now. I know these authors. We all share a secret, and it makes me feel small, in a good way, like I’m part of something bigger—something powerful and magical and so special it can’t be explained. I breathe it all in, appreciating everything about these walls, especially their chaos.

Don’t think. Just go.”

I run the glue across the back of my poem, and then I step off the stage and walk toward the back of the room, past all of them. I stop right next to Caroline, find an empty spot on the wall, and slap my words against it.

On one side, it said: What you see…And on the other side: It isn’t me.

“Well, if she looked like a mime, it makes perfect sense that she’s not speaking to you,”

“I know I’ve got this side of me that wants to grab the yoke from the pilot and just fly the whole mess into the sea.”

I don’t often want to grab the yoke and crash into the sea, but sometimes I do.”

“That might make it seem like we’re becoming friends.”

Olivia was worried about what the rest of us would think

“Everyone’s got something,”

“Of course they do. Some people are just better actors than others.”

“That was kind of the end of us.”

It’s not jealousy. It’s my OCD, this inexplicable, uncontrollable need to know one thing, and then one more thing, and then yet another thing, until my brain is exhausted.

“This is why I told you. I knew you’d talk some sense into me.

“I also think you’re overcomplicating this whole thing. I think that even when good, totally normal, completely healthy things happen in your life, like”—she starts articulating her points on her fingers—“your new car, writing poetry, spending an afternoon at AJ’s house, meeting me…” She sits up straighter wearing a big fake grin, then returns to her serious tone. “You seem determined to find a way to make them unhealthy.”

These are all good things, all normal things. And rather than enjoying them, you find a way to twist them into something toxic.”

“You hear this crack when the bat connects, and then the ball’s gone, soaring off into the distance. But you can’t relax, because now there’s another ball speeding your way. So you tighten your grip, take your stance, and swing again. And you keep going until your time runs out. By then, your shoulder is throbbing and you’re totally out of breath, but you feel pretty damn good.” “You’re saying my thoughts are like baseballs.” Her lips curl into a satisfied grin. “Exactly. And you, my friend, stand there in the batting cage and let those balls smack you in the head, over and over again. But you don’t have to.” She taps her finger against her temple. “You have a perfectly good bat.” “I have a broken bat.”

And please, stop thinking so much.

I bite the inside of my cheek three times and head off in the opposite direction.

Well, I might be failing Trigonometry, but that doesn’t have anything to do with the amount of sleep I’ve been getting. That’s entirely about me sucking at trigonometry.

It’s the way Poet’s Corner is changing my life, exactly like Caroline said it would.

My eight new friends.

We make eye contact and I don’t let her go. It feels weird. I don’t think I’ve ever looked her in the eye with such conviction before.

Try not to think about it.” They’re empty words. Of course she’ll think about

“I didn’t go there looking for you. I went looking for me.” My voice is soft, low, and shaky. “But now, here you are, and somehow, in finding you, I think I’ve found myself.”

“I like you too much, too.”

I drag my feet on my way to you. Way over there. Too far away. Skin. Thin, practically translucent. Eyes. Sunken. Skeletal. Bruised. Tubes. Colorless and everywhere. You. Not you. Gone. Not gone. Not yet. Hand. Warm. Slack. But still familiar. So familiar. I shouldn’t have dragged my feet.

And I want to stop, but I can’t, because telling someone with OCD to stop obsessing about something is like telling someone who’s having an asthma attack to just breathe normally.