As a billion rooms
I have saved me
Yes, I have saved me
Constructed of words and hurt
And the glass self I’ve protected
All this time
To get to this one of a billion rooms
This room tonight.
Beat beat beat
I have found my own beat
My own pitter-patter
My own sis-boom-bah!
Beat beat beat
I belt it out
Song sung strong
Stung song
Tongue song
Back from being
Bitten back
Some songs sung
Beg to be carried home.
This song sings
To be carried far and wide.
Beat beat beat—
The sound it brings
Is the sound of wings.
When he’s done, there is the briefest of silences. Then: noise. Hands beating together. Voices meeting together. Someone gets to their feet. We all get to our feet. Katie is crying next to me. Quinn in front of us is not crying. He is not smiling, either. He is taking a deep breath, letting it out.
I don’t even know how to ask the question I want to ask. “Where did that come from?” is what I say to Katie, and it sounds stupid, inadequate.
“It was awful,” Katie tells me. “Freshman year. He had to go to his mom and tell her she either had to kick his father out or he would leave himself. His mother chose Quinn. But it was really touch-and-go.”
“I had no idea,” I say.
“He wanted school to be normal. It was the only normal he had.”
I look over to Ryan—did he know? But I can tell from his expression that he didn’t, either. He catches my eye, and we don’t need to say a word to have the whole conversation. About how oblivious we were. About how there was so much more to Quinn than we ever gave him credit for.
“Okay, people, enough,” Quinn says now. “You’re only making it harder for our next poet—Ryan Ignatius.”
Ryan looks like he wants to pass. Or pass out. Or both. But his whole table is cheering, and Taylor is giving him an encouraging squeeze. There’s no going back now, I can imagine him thinking. As he picks up some pages from his table and heads to the mic, my secondhand nervousness is about as strong as a firsthand dose. I cheer loudly for him, hoping he can hear my voice, and that it will help.
“Hi,” he says when he gets to the mic. “I’m Ryan, and this is my first time.”
“You’re doing great!” someone from Greer’s table shouts.
Ryan’s hands are shaking as he unfolds his poem. And they remain shaking as he starts to read. I can’t tell whether the first line he reads is the title or the real first line.
I’m not ready.
I’m not ready
to walk three steps ahead of where I am.
I’m not ready
to be paired,
declared,
bared
to be certain
of what lies behind the curtain.
I’m not ready
to call it by its name
because then it won’t be the same
as everything I used to be.
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.”