Teenagers Are Free Verse Walking Around On

Writing Is The Only Way I Know To Demand Justice From An Uncaring Universe.

I Did Things I Did Not Understand For Reasons I Could Not Begin To Explain Just To Be In Motion, To Be Trying To Do Something, Change Something In A World I Wanted Desperately To Make Over But Could Not Imagine For Myself.

It's Fun To Tease People About Where Fiction And Life Intersect.

And Of Course These Days I Feel Like There Is A Nation Of Us - Displaced Southerners And Children Of The Working Class. We Listen To Steve Earle, Mary J. Blige, And K.d. Lang. We Devour Paperback Novels And Tell Evil Mean Stories, Value Stubbornness Above Patience And A Sense Of Humor More Than A College Education. We Claim Our Heritage With A Full Appreciation Of How Often It Has Been Disdained. And Let Me Promise You, You Do Not Want To Make Us Angry.

I Wanted Her To To Go On Talking And Understand Without Me Saying Anything. I Wanted Her To Love Me Enough To Leave Him, To Pack Us Up And Take Us Away From Him, To Kill Him If Need Be. (107)