had to think about closing my legs all the time I couldn’t just
sit and talk and I thought it was silly and stupid and I w asn’t
going to do it and she slapped me and told me how I was just
trying to hurt her. Sometimes she screamed and made me sit
with m y legs closed counting stitches knitting and I wanted
her to die. I wanted to go everywhere and I would lie and say I
was somewhere I was allowed to be and I would go
somewhere I had never been just to see it or just to be alone or
ju st to see what it was like or if anything would happen. Once I
got caught because two boys who were bigger and older
threw a Christmas tree at me and it hit the top o f m y head and
blood started running down all over me. I was walking on a
trashy dirt road but it had trees and bushes on it and even some
poison sumac on the trees which was bright red and I thought
it was beautiful and I used to pretend it was Nature and I was
walking in Nature but children w eren’t supposed to go there
alone because it was out o f the way. The tw o boys came
running out o f the bushes and trees and threw a whole
Christmas tree at m y head and m y head got cut open and
blood started running down and I got home walking with the
blood coming down and I got put in bed and the doctor came
and it w asn’t anything, only a little cut with a lot o f blood he
said. He said the head could bleed a lot without really being
hurt bad. But I had been some place I w asn’t supposed to go so
it was m y fault anyw ay even i f I had been hurt very bad. I was
supposed to learn that you weren’t supposed to go strange
places but instead I learned that m y head didn’t get smashed or
cracked open and I w asn’t going to die and I could do what I
wanted i f I w asn’t afraid o f dying; and I wasn’t. I had another
life all apart from what m y momma said and wanted and
thought and did and I did what I wanted and she couldn’t stop
me and I liked going places she wasn’t and I liked not having to
listen to her or stay with her or be like some prisoner where she
could see me and I liked doing what I wanted even if it was
nothing really. I hated her telling me everything not to do and
I stopped listening to her and no one knows all the things I did
or all the places I went. I liked it when she was away. I knew it
was bad o f me to like it because she was sick but I liked being
alone. I got sick o f being her child. I’d get angry with her and
yell at her for trying to make me do things. But I was always
nice to the other adults because you wanted them to like you
because then they left you alone more and sometimes they
would talk to you about things if you asked them lots o f
intelligent questions and made them talk to you. And you
have to be nice to adults to show you have manners and so they
w o n ’t watch you all the time and because you get punished i f
