Prepare....

I always wanted to be a good girl scout.
And when I wasn't...
when I wandered off on the way to meetings to stare at the Tinker Man...
scribbled on my sit~upon...
burned the house down on the way out the door to my first camp out...

I gave up.

And then I always wanted to dress up like one for Halloween.

Pretend to be a good Girl Scout...

To be prepared...


I wanted to parade around in my little green dress, and my anklet socks,
earning badges I was proud of,
and melting Smores on an open fire.

Instead,
I dressed up like hookers, and hippies, and David Bowie....
zombies, and witches, and a Box of Frosted Flakes...
faeries, and cinderellas, and neon bumble bees,
cowboys, and drunks, pregnant football players and butterflies...

I woke up every halloween and pulled a new face out of the chest of drawers, and wrote pretend Frank Kafka novels...
rang random doorbells...
And held out my bag for candy...

I don't have a sweet tooth anymore...

And I don't want to be a Girl Scout anymore...

It doesn't matter whose child it is....

There were wires everywhere and the hum of soft shoes padding up and down the halls almost drove me mad. How could they be so quiet when my world was exploding? How could my heart pound louder than every machine they had plugged in, louder than the canned voice calling Dr. Kildare on the loud speaker? How could they not crumple, fall to their knees with me...and know....

Long before he stabilized they told me in a foreign antiseptic language..."we've done all we can do"... and then they scattered, pigeons on a highway dodging five o'clock traffic.

And then he lived.

They came back to pack him up, uninsured, in my little red car. Naked and broken. Nobody wished us well on the way out the door. They didn't call in the morning to check on him.

This time they kept him.

And for 72 hours someone will watch over my child. With the cheese curl toes. The homemade tattoo on his ankle. The blonde hair with the slightest red sunset. For 72 hours he will be mad, but he'll breathe.

And I'll cry,
But I'll sleep...

Because he'll be safe....