Best Wishes for Isadora *HIATUS*

Rose and Isadora. Isadora and Rose.

  I reread the poem in a tiny whisper, wondering if it was good or not. But I'd always been a shit writer and knew immediately that it was utter crap.
  I could guarantee that I would fail this poetry unit just as I did with all of the other ELA curriculum-but to me, it didn't even matter. The seat next to me was empty. And without Isadora, the classroom felt cold and dark.
  I fiddled with a loose thread on my navy blue sweater, tight and shirt and bending the rules. When the school gave us these sad uniforms, it was easy to find a few loopholes. My hair was tumbling down to that area above my tailbone, a disgusting spaghetti waterfall, the sad color of white rice.
  I hated that my skin was as white as my hair. I looked like a crumpled piece of loose leaf paper. All white but utterly and pathetically discarded.
  So I took the page out of my writer's notebook, the one with the poem written in my dismal scrawl, and succeeded in making the balled-up torn page of former tree land in the garbage.
  Seven other poems were in there.
  Seven other poems I should've kept in the notebook so I could burn them later.
  I looked dead and I knew it. I hadn't slept in days. My annoyingly thick and dark eyebrows were unplucked, and I was wearing my gigantic cokebottle glasses instead of my contact lenses.
  One time, I went to sleepaway camp and didn't defecate for seventeen days. It hurt at first, but after a while, I completely forgot about that bodily function's existence and was content with not pooping until I had to go to the hospital.
  That was all too similar to my feelings about sleep. But coffee was my medicine and stress was what was keeping me awake.
  (Besides the coffee).
  I still get sympathetic glances in the hallway. And though it's been seventeen days since Isadora died, it feels like it's been longer. Seventeen days since I'd slept, showered, eaten a proper meal that wasn't ramen noodles, and put on makeup.
  I was expecting that those seventeen days would have felt shorter, and I'd still be grieving. I was so wrong.
  But now I'm numb and cold and I didn't give a fuck if I was an ice cube put in a microwave.
  I'd never wanted to die as much as I had in those seventeen days.
  And I pretend. I pretend that everything's okay and use and electric drill to screw my face into a smile as everything crumbles around me.
  I must seem deranged. Like I'm holding a pistol in one hand and a lollipop in the other, shooting everyone in sight, all with a corybantic, blindingly white smile on my face.
  I remember when I was little and found joy on rainy days and skipped outside into big puddles and I grinned like I meant it. Everyone would think it was adorable. Admirable.
  But now as I unfurl my smiling umbrella, I seem bat-shit crazy. I used to think I was destined to be an actress. I would be a legend on the big screen.
How wrong I was.
  I waited for the bell to ring. I waited for this hell to be over so I could skip the rest of school and wander around until I found myself back at my house.
  But the minutes dragged on and on. I seriously wondered if I could slow down time because the last five minutes of the period were like hours.
Seconds are like minutes and minutes are like ten and ten minutes are like an hour and an hour is like a day and a day is like a week and a week is like a month and a month is like a year and a year is like a decade and a decade is like a century and a century is like a millennium and a millennium is like an eon and an eon is like an eternity.
  It's safe to say that school feels like an eternity. Longer, if possible.
  I knew that the guidance counselor had come into each homeroom of every grade to break the news of Isadora's death the night before as if no one knew. They did this whenever someone's mom or dad or brother or sister died. But we'd never had a kid our age, a senior in high school, die of all things.
  We would expect it from the people who were writing suicide poems at the moment like Marigold Black (a nickname donned by all of her black-clad, metal-loving friends), or one of those shrimpy kids like Johnny Glade who could snap like uncooked pasta, or maybe some dumb jock who drink and drive.
But not Isadora. Isadora was immortal.
  Or that was what we thought.