Subject: Re: Re: Re: Senior Project Application
Cordelia,
I’ve loved the recent poems you are turning in for class! I only wish you’d share them with your peers. You’ve grown so much in your writing this last year, and I must say I’m proud. Have you thought any more about the poetry conference? There’s a contest on the last day. You’d have to recite your poem, but I really think you have a chance at winning if you put forth some effort.
Think about it.
Vidya Nadeer
To: Vidya Nadeer ([email protected])
From: Cordelia Koenig ([email protected])
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Senior Project Application
Dear Ms. Nadeer,
Thank you so much for thinking of me in regard to the conference. I’ll be sure to consider it.
Thanks again,
Cordelia Koenig
Kodiak isn’t playing a part.
He’s really the kind of guy who
looks like he was born with stubble
and a hoodie attached to his body.
As if his face is simultaneously pictured in the dictionary
under “cool” and “carefree.”
When he parks his bike against my house
I’m already closing the front door,
pulling my beanie over my ears.
He reaches,
pulling me into a hug that
feels so familiar
I could swear I still have braces
and he’s still wearing Vans.
Maybe
in another world
where Jack raised me instead of Dad,
I would have fit
with the boy
who sings his poems.
Instead,
I tug Kodiak back to my world.
Where there’s a lake behind my house
and it’s so cold we might freeze,
but the ice isn’t thick enough to walk on.
We sit at the water’s edge,
next to each other
on the dock where I learned to fish
and where my sisters and I
took turns
pushing each other in
every summer.
We’re shivering but anything
is better than sitting under the roof
where the lies began.
When Kodiak stuffs his hands
into his pockets
and stares out onto the lake
I forget he’s an eagle or an otter.
He’s just a boy who used to
know me.
A boy who might want to know me
again.
I say, “It’s so much easier to write a poem
and keep it in my notebook
than it is to say how I feel.”
“But if you say it out loud,
it takes the scariness of those feelings
away.”
Then he’s quiet,
and the world is
crackling ice
and the still of what
used to be winter
and is now something else.
When I’m done reading my poems
he looks faraway,
and doesn’t say
a word.
Doesn’t try to fill up
the silence that sits between
us like another person.
But he’s right.
I am free.
So I tell him about the message from
Jack.
The big secret.
I know in my heart
what Jack meant when he asked
about Mama.
They have a history:
Me.
Kodiak’s breath puffs out in tiny clouds,
and he takes his hands out of his pockets
and reaches for mine.
Pulling me to a stand,
he tucks my hair back
into my beanie and holds me there a moment.
“It’s okay to be sad, Cordelia.
This is sad.”
Sana-Friend ♥
Sana: In case you were wondering . . .
My neighbor was not joking about paying me in cigarettes.
Me: That’s disgusting.
When are you going to tell her you don’t smoke?
Sana: Absolutely NEVER!
God Cordelia. Think about my street cred.
Me: What was I thinking?
Sana: I ask myself that constantly.
WHAT is Cordelia thinking?
Me: Hey I’m headed to bed.
I’ll see you at school tomorrow.
Sana: Dude you’re being weird. It’s like 8.
Me: I know.
Sana: You know you’re being weird or you know it’s 8?
Me: Both.
Sana: Are you okay?
Me: I don’t know.
Sana: Do you want me to come over?
Hey.
Cordelia?
CORDELIA ANN KOENIG!
Sister Bea
Bea: I sent you my GeneQuest results.
Me: I don’t need them.
Bea: Mom said you’ve been having a hard time.
And I went back and checked. I never sent them!
She’s worried.
But having a hard enough time you can’t do your own project?
Come on Delia. That’s not like you.
Me: Yeah.
Bea: You should talk to Mom.
Me: I can’t.
Bea: Why?
Me: I can’t.
Bea: Want to know what I think?
I think you’re just going through some sort of senior year crisis of self.
I went through the same thing, which is why I did the ancestry project.
Because I wanted to learn who I was.
Where I came from.
And know what I found out?
Our family is really cool.
We’re related to Emmeline Pankhurst!
Me: Trust me. It’s not a crisis of self.
Bea: But knowing I was related to her.
She’s like the best feminist.
It’s half the reason I chose Brown for Women’s Studies.
I promise. It’ll get better next year when you’re at college.
Me: This is different.
Bea: Yeah, I know.
It’s always different with you.
Like in third grade when you asked to go by Hannah instead of Cordelia.
Or a few years ago when you decided you were vegan.
How long did that last again? Five minutes? Ten?
Know what I think?
Me: What?
Bea: I think you were hoping your results would be different.
That you were switched at birth or something.
And now you’re disappointed.
Me: I promise you, it’s not like that.
Bea: You aren’t that special.
We are all individuals trying to get our needs met.
And you’re alienating the people who love you.
Iris said you’ve been acting really weird too.
And Mom said you’ve been hanging out with Kodiak again.
She’s worried.
Me: I bet she is.
I’d be worried if I was Mom too.
Bea: What is that supposed to mean?
Me: Nothing.
Forget it.
To: Cordelia Koenig ([email protected])
From: Bea Koenig ([email protected])
Subject: Your Project
Here.
42% German/French
31.5% British/Irish
22% Scandinavian
2.6% Broadly Southern European
1.25% Broadly European
0.3% North African and Arabian
0.2% Native American
Truth is,
we aren’t so different
anyway.