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I like Sheryl Crow, they like Lauryn Hill. Except for Raynard and Devon, who are into jazz. It’s like we come from two different planets. But hey, it’s not my fault. I didn’t choose to be here. If it weren’t for Mom up and dying on me, I’d still be back in Ossining with my friends.
    I miss my friends. That’s mostly why I hated moving here. I knew I wouldn’t have anybody to talk to when it hurts, and it hurts all the time. Missing Mom, I mean. I was full up with loneliness for her a few weeks ago. It was one of those moments that come from outta nowhere, when you all of a sudden feel something reach inside your chest, grab your heart, and squeeze ’til you can hardly breathe. I was in the girls’ locker room at the time, and for a minute, I wheeled around like Uncle Donny does when he’s drunk. That’s when I bumped into Parscha Johnsan.
    Porscha Johnson has the reputation for being a little touched in the head. In freshman year, she’d beaten the snot out of a girl who’d pushed her too far. They say it took four people to pull her off of the other girl. Everybody had pretty much steered clear of her since then. This is who I bump into.
    “Hey! Watch it,” she said.
    “Sorry,” I told her.
    “You got that right. Why don’t you sorry yourself on outta here?” Usually, this would be the cue for me to make myself invisible, but I was hurting too bad, and I was not in the mood. I flung my locker door open and spoke between my teeth.
    “I said I was sorry. Now why don’t you just leave me alone?”
    “Leave you alone? Look, if you wanted to be left alone, why the hell did you invade my space?”
    By space, I thought she meant neighborhood. That’s when I felt my head spin off. “My mom died, all right? And I was sent to live with my grandmother, who lives in this neighborhood, and I had no choice. Not that it’s any of your business.”
    The split second those last words flew out, I wanted to take them back, but I couldn’t. I swallowed hard and waited for Porscha to shove me against the lockers, or to punch me in the stomach, or to whip out a knife like I’d seen kids do on TV. Instead, she stepped back, lowered herself to the bench, and said, “Sorry about your mom. My mom died too.”
    Turns out we both live with our grandmothers. For a long time, she put off telling me what her mom died from. My mom died of cancer, which was no big secret, but hers died from a drug overdose. Porscha thought that would make a difference, but when I found out, I told her it made no difference at all. Dead is dead, and lonely is lonely, and they both stink. All that matters, I told her, is that we’re friends. And we are.
    I’m lucky. I was on my way to being like Amy Moscowitz, the one girl in class almost nobody knows anything about. She cuts herself off, hardly ever speaks, or lets anyone in. She seems to be happy by herself, but I need to hear somebody’s voice besides my own. I’m not as strong as she is, and now I don’t have to pretend that I am.
    Open Mike Fridays help. We kind of have our own little clique now. The whole school knows who we are, that we’re “the poets.” It’s weird. For the first time in my life, I’m part of a group that’s cool. Who would believe it?
    Last month, Mr. Ward gave our class an assignment to write a poem about what frightens us most, in honor of Halloween. A year ago, I might have written about something silly, like ghosts, which I don’t even believe in, and even if I did, ghosts would not be at the top of my list. The scariest thing I can think of now is being all alone in the world.

OPEN MIKE
    Common Ground
    BY LESLIE LUCAS
     
     
    On the dark side of the moon
where death comes sooner
than expected;
at the edge of heartbreak
we both take
a leap
into the unknown;
at the center of loneliness
we dip into a pool
of tears
and thrash around
desperate not to drown;
we both reach out
for a life preserver,
something to hold on to
something sturdy