You can’t be like me
But be happy that you can’t
I see pain but I don’t feel it
I am like the old Tin Man.
—THE AVETT BROTHERS, “TIN MAN”
ACCORDING TO ELISABETH KÜBLER-ROSS, THERE ARE FIVE stages of grief a person passes through after the death of a loved one: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
I took a psychology class during the last semester of my junior year when we lived in Texas. We were discussing stage four when the principal walked into the room, pale as a ghost.
“Layken, can I see you in the hallway please?”
Principal Bass was a pleasant man. Plump in the belly, plump in the hands, plump in places you didn’t know could be plump. It was an unusually cold spring day in Texas, but you wouldn’t know it from the rings of sweat underneath his arms. He was the type of principal who hung out in his of ce rather than the halls. He never went looking for trouble, just waited for it to come to him. So why was he here?
I had a sinking feeling deep in the pit of my stomach as I stood up and walked as slowly as I could to the classroom door. He wouldn’t make eye contact with me. I remember I looked right at him, and his eyes darted to the oor. He felt sorry for me. But why?
When I walked out into the hallway my mother was standing there, mascara streaked down her cheeks. The look in her eyes told me why she was there. Why she was there, and my father wasn’t.
I shook my head, refusing to believe what I knew to be true. “No,” I cried repeatedly. She threw her arms around me and started to collapse to the oor. Rather than hold her up, I simply melted with her. That day I experienced my rst stage of grief in the hallway oor of my high school: denial.
* * *
GAVIN IS PREPARING to perform his poetry. He’s standing in front of the class, his paper shaking between his ngers as he clears his throat and prepares to read from it.
I wonder, as I ignore Gavin’s presence and focus on Will, do the ve stages of grief only apply to the death of a loved one? Could it not also apply to the death of an aspect of your life? If it does, then I’m de nitely smack-dab in the center of stage two: anger.
“What’s it called, Gavin?” Will asks. He’s sitting at his desk, writing notes into his pad as students perform. It pisses me off—the way he’s being so attentive, focused on everything except me. His ability to make me feel like this huge invisible void pisses me off. The way he pauses to chew on the tip of his pen pisses me off. Just last night, those same lips that are wrapped around the tip of his ugly red pen were making their way up my neck.
I push the thought of his kiss out of my mind as quickly as it crept in. I don’t know how long it will take, but I’m determined to break from this hold he has on me.
“Um, I didn’t really give it a title,” Gavin responds. He’s standing at the front of the classroom, second to last person to perform. “I guess you can call it ‘Preproposal’?”
“ ‘Preproposal’—go ahead then,” Will states in a teacherish voice that also pisses me off.
“Ahem.” Gavin clears his throat. His hands start trembling even more as he begins to read.
One million fty-one thousand and
two hundred minutes.
That’s approximately how many minutes
I’ve loved you,
It’s how many minutes I’ve thought about you,
How many minutes I’ve worried about you,
How many minutes I’ve thanked God for you,
How many minutes I’ve thanked every deity in the
Universe for you.