DYING IS NOT HOTBy Celia the DarkCool is no longer cool because cool is now hot,and school isn't school if you are skipping.Then the neighborhood is school and John,the creepy dropout guy is teaching.And it isn't cool because the cool kids stay in school,where the other cool kids tell them them how hot they areand they wouldn't want to miss a dance for cutting.Kids who skip school were never cool or hot butalready dumped into the trashcan with leftover lunch pizza,bruised into a locker, asking their parents for extra lunch moneyso they can smoke and act like they never cared anyway.And skipping school's not cool but it is schoolbecause that's where they learn what the uncool learnabout life and dying.

I expect you to vanishup and up into the tree,a shake of the branchesand gone like youhad never happened.But you came down and handed me a leaf"from seven limbs up,already yellow," you said,and then you walked awayand you were still real.

THE DAY I ALMOST KILLED MYSELFIt was afternoon and the razorreflected the sky like like a mirror. The bath towelswere white like the bathtub and my wristswere white like the towels.The bathwater got lukewarm.The afternoon turned into lateafternoon and I was still pulling ropes of airinto my lungs like a sailor. The razor reflectedthe sunset. The bathwater got cold.The bath towels were white like the bathtub and my wrists were white like the towels.

Since Drake told me that day in the wooded lot,while the leaves agreed with gravity and left the trees,that he liked boys instead of girls, it's been easier to love him. Loving him feels like counting or usingthe phone or something else that's effortless. I'm likea leaf with nothing to do but fall.

Autumn stomps around outside the houselike an annoying little sister, tappingon all the shutters, kicking up the pilesof leaves you rake, pretending to howllike a wolf. But I'm glad she's here,so we can cuss at Summer together,pretending we don't even remember her name.