Forget Me Not

“The afternoon sunlight bounces off her hair like a pot of sparkling gold. Wow.”

Jinsong uses the simile “like a pot of sparkling gold” to describe the color and texture of Calli’s hair, immediately signaling his attraction to her. Terry has established Calli’s hair as a symbol for her true self, so when Jinsong is immediately drawn to Calli’s hair, the symbol foreshadows their relationship.

“The boy slams the lid,

presses start,

smiles at me with eyes

the color of cinnamon.”

Terry uses sensory imagery to describe Jinsong’s eye color. The image of cinnamon implies warmth and baked goods, alluding to Calli’s feelings toward Jinsong: To Calli, Jinsong is a best friend, and his family provides something like a second home.

“I fight back tears as I stand,

see thousands and thousands of wavy strands

spilled at my feet

like pools of golden blood.”

Calli associates her hair with her own self-acceptance. The simile “like pools of golden blood” shows how her haircut feels like a death to Calli. The image answers Jinsong’s comparison of Calli’s hair with “a pot of sparkling gold” (11)—the “pools” suggest that the gold is no longer contained in a “pot” but rather spilling out uncontrollably, as Calli feels a lack of control in her life.

“Truth is

June’s not my last name

last names come from fathers

and mine

is gone.”

Calli reveals that she no longer wants to use her last name because it reminds her of her father, who died in a car accident in the snow. Though Calli struggles with her identity and self-acceptance, her decision to go by a different last name foreshadows her growing sense of confidence.

“My stomach feels sick, like I drank a gigantic glass of rotten milk. I wind up my fastball again. This time, I hurl it toward Duncan as hard as I can.”

Terry uses the simile “like I drank a gigantic glass of rotten milk” to describe how guilty Jinsong feels after joining in bullying Calli with Duncan and Nyle. This simile evokes disgust to emphasize the way bullying feels out of character for Jinsong. His response foreshadows the fact that he will punch Duncan in Part 3.

“As I’m sitting in Nyle’s kitchen, watching him and Duncan have a competition to see who can fit the most Cheerios in their armpit hair, I remember a proverb my grandfather used to say: A man should choose a friend who is better than himself.”

This quote reflects Jinsong’s inner conflict regarding what kind of person he wants to be. Terry juxtaposes the juvenile nature of playing an unhygienic game with children’s cereal with the solemnity of the grandfather’s proverb to magnify the wisdom of the advice. Over the course of the novel, Jinsong will realize that he cannot be best friends with everyone and keep the ethics to which he aspires.

“As Mom pulls up

to Black Ridge Intermediate School,

I hope and wish

with every part of my heart,

that in Victorian times,

poppies meant

courage.”

Calli rescues a dying poppy flower from her mother’s shop, and the flower symbolizes Calli’s sense of isolation. She chooses to bring the poppy to school, and the poppy becomes a symbol for courage. At the end of the novel, Calli gives Beatriz a poppy flower to encourage her to be brave and stop isolating herself from others.

“Cold blades rest against my skin

I want to scream,

run,

tell her I don’t want short hair,

but all I do is bite my cheek,

bend my neck.

One of these days

I’ll speak up.”

The words Terry uses to describe Calli’s haircut are violent: “blades,” “scream,” “bite.” This passage demonstrates Calli’s feelings about the haircut but also reflects the continued tension between Calli and her mom. The final line foreshadows the end of the novel when Calli will stand up to her mom.

“Opportunity splatters

the carpet and walls

like an airborne bowl of

spaghetti.”

The simile “like an airborne bowl of spaghetti” describes how Calli feels when she doesn’t speak up about her mom cutting her hair. This simile creates a domestic image of waste, mess, and carelessness, mirroring the lack of care that Calli feels from her mom. Calli wants to say how she feels, but before she can say anything, her mom interrupts her, and Calli loses her courage.

“We talk about everything—well, no, that’s a lie. We never talk about how I sit in the corner like a blob of Jell-O, listening to it all but saying nothing.”

Jinsong and Calli’s friendship is developing, but neither of them will address why Jinsong doesn’t stand up for her at school. Terry uses the simile “like a blob of Jell-O” to show how useless Jinsong feels when he watches people bully Calli. This simile, like others in the novel, uses references to childhood foods and activities to establish the age and inexperience of the characters.

“I

Resist

Resist

but the feeling gains momentum,

like a bicycle rolling down a hill

until it is out of control.”

Terry repeats the word “resist” to show Calli struggling against her tics and to mimic the patterns that Calli follows. The simile “like a bicycle rolling down a hill” demonstrates how the tics are not in Calli’s control. The poem builds momentum until Calli must succumb to her tics.

“My chair grows hotter by the moment. I’m surprised I haven’t jumped out of it yet. Surprised that even though my butt is burning, my body is frozen stiff.”

Terry uses the metaphor of “burning” and freezing to show how conflicted Jinsong feels about not helping Calli. The burning represents his desire to help, but the freezing represents his fear of being mocked by his classmates.

“As soon as I say the word,

they l e a p

out of me

like grasshoppers in a brush fire.”

Terry spaces out the letters in the word “leap” across the poem to mimic how the tics happen suddenly without Calli’s control. Terry combines the visual of the word leap with the simile “like grasshoppers in a brush fire” to emphasize the involuntary nature of Calli’s tics. Just like grasshoppers have no choice but to jump to save themselves from a fire, Calli has no choice but to let her tics out.

“I wriggle from my blankets,

crawl to the hall,

curl into a ball,

soak up the moonbeams as they fall

through the window.”

This poem uses internal rhyme to reflect Calli’s desire for security and consistency. She is sitting in the moonlight in the hallway for comfort, and the repetition within these lines of “-all” sounds creates a comforting, consistent rhyme.

“Bam!

Bam!

Words slam

against my heart.”

Terry uses onomatopoeia—words whose sounds mimic their meaning—to immerse the reader in how Calli feels reading the fake valentines from Duncan and Nyle. The suddenness of the exclamation marks also evokes shock in the reader, like Calli’s shock at reading the cards.

“While I wait,

I do a funny thing with my jaw—

thrust it

forward

forward

forward.”

Both the shape and repetition of “forward” in this line embody Calli’s experience with her jaw tic. The words repeat, showing how the tics repeat, and the words jut forward on the page, the same way that Calli’s jaw juts forward.

“I’ve been at home

alone before,

but

I’ve never been

Overnight

alone before,

never checked the locks before,

one hundred and one times before

going to bed alone before.”

The repetition of the word “never” in this poem demonstrates the experience of thought rumination, common for those diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder. The phrase “alone before” occurs on a loop through the poem, much like the thought of locking the door continues on a loop for Calli.

“Why would she want to hang out with me? My grandfather’s proverb says we’re supposed to choose friends who are better than us. Not ten times worse.”

This quote shows Jinsong’s internal struggle and the guilt he feels over abandoning Calli to her bullies. The sentence “[n]ot ten times worse” does not contain a verb, reflecting Jinsong’s inaction in the face of Calli’s bullies.

“And in this morning,

though I am only on top of a

Ferris wheel,

I feel as though I’m sitting

right on top of the world.

And my heart

shoots across the sky

like a star.”

Calli uses two similes to express her joy over Jinsong’s confession that he likes her. She compares the feeling to being “on top of the world” and adrenaline-filled like a shooting star. This elevates the emotional resonance of the scene and emphasizes the fact that it is the climax of the novel toward which the conflicts have been building.

“It’s made up of different

igneous rocks

and

hope and

light and

wonder.”

This passage demonstrates the moon’s meaning to Calli. The moon is a place that’s fascinating but also a future for Calli that she gets to decide—one that’s not dictated by her mom’s choices. The moon is the only place Calli wants to go to for herself.

“Dearest Calli,

I’ve always known we were destined

to be forever friends.”

Calli receives this note along with a locket from a popular girl, Ivy Andrews. Ivy claims to be friends with Calli but has only mocked her in class and has never shown interest in her personality. Ivy’s note represents false friendship—the kind that Calli thought she wanted at the start of the novel.

“I trade my brush for pen, and then,

in larger, looper letters I write:

CALLIOPE JUNE

FLIES TO THE MOON.”

Once Calli has reached self-acceptance, she represents this confidence in her self-portrait for art class. Her name, Calliope June, represents her claiming her own identity (including her Tourette syndrome), and the moon represents her hopes for the future.

“I have my poppy with me

for courage,

but it doesn’t seem like

enough. How can anything be

enough

on a day like today?”

Overwhelmed by the thought of moving, Calli turns to her pressed poppy flower for courage. This is the poppy that she rescued from her mom’s flower shop and the one she’s carried with her throughout the school year. The word “enough” is isolated on a single line, both emphasizing Calli’s question of whether the poppy is “enough” but also on its own forming a desperate call for her troubles to end.