I would not kid around about something like this.

Alone in my room
Dreaming of love
I am so afraid
Did that shadow just move?

My aunt has very long fingernails and whenever she comes over she yells at me about having something called "angst." She's so slow witted. My dog's name is Parchment and she goes on the paper.

I told y'all.
I would not kid about something like this.
Ever.

See, I used to go to school and learn by rote and all that good stuff that makes people upstanding citizens. I even got an award for paying attention once and a bumper sticker for my mom's car. Except mom doesn't have a car because she is up the creek without a paddle in a padded room with no phone numbers on the wall. Suits me just fine. Except that my uncle stands in the foyer all the time. Yeah, I gotta stay in my room at all times. At all times. See, that is what I meant by saying I used to go to school, which invariably is mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph. I didn't drop out or any dumb shit like that. My mom stole groceries because she misplaced her purse and they locked her up. Daddy? He said I was his little girl, but then he went and drove his truck into a ditch and they needed the jaws of life and it was too late.

What did you think I was gonna say?
Something sweet and cheerful like grandma?
Grandma wears nasty thick gray pantyhose.
I wear socks with pom poms on the back of 'em.

So, it is a roll of the dice and I end up with Aunt Vivian and Uncle Hester. They eat a lot of fish. I mean, a lot of fish, and some of it is heavily salted like on the Mayflower and shit. What is up with that? Anyway, Uncle Hester thinks that boys are bad and that my ass is too round for the world. So he stands in the foyer with some six hundred year old duck hunting rifle and Aunt Vivian does some homeschooling crap with me even though she never could read any words in books at all. They are making me slower than a tree stump with this behavior they exhibited towards me. Can I complain? No, I live in a bad neighborhood and the cops never come unless someone is dead. End of story there, let me tell you.

Should I go on?
Is my rant about my lifestyle ruining your Christmas?
Santa Claus.
Harumph. I get spanked for Christmas.

Every Christmas morning, Uncle Hester gets out his Bible and tells me to find any evidence of people celebrating Christmas and going to Macys and Bloomingdale's and Home Depot for presents. When I can't produce any evidence, he takes me over his knee and whips the tar out of me. Hey, I saw them do a parade on the television and sing really nice Christmas carols, but now I have no TV because Aunt Vivian said I am becoming like a whore on the streets and unless I want to end up there I have to stay in my room.

What is my point?
Do I have to have one?
I am a teenaged girl experiencing emotional angst.
I don't need a point.
Thank you very much.

So, the other day this cute boy was coming up the walkway to the front door of the house. If he was in a catalog I would have ordered him to make me feel better. Uncle Hester was in the can, so I rushed to the door to greet my beautiful boy. Wouldn't you know it, Uncle Hester rushes out of the outhouse, runs across the lawn, tackles my beautiful boy and makes his forehead kiss the concrete untill he cries and runs away. I had to go inside and get spanked some more. Uncle Hester has a thing he calls his "leather activity belt" from which he dangles tools and other oddities. He takes that off and makes a mess of his tools and other oddities on the floor and proceeds to whip me good so I can't even sit down and eat the oatmeal they serve me three times a day (at least it has raisins in it). I'm so lonely. Why don't they go away and leave me to a foster home or something equally groovy on the same wavelength as that. I even tried writing to Ann Landers but she didn't answer me. I imagine I'll be forty and these family members who aren't very hip will still be holding me in my room because the world is too much fun for me. I'm starting to grow breasts. Like anyone cares. I might as well take some cold medicine now. There is enough of it around this place.

Oh, hey.
Thanks for listening.
Please play my song on the radio.
Thanks. Love ya.

...psst, I'll call again when they are outside pruning together again... k?

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