AUTOMATIC WRITING (a five-minute write)

AUTOMATIC WRITING (A FIVE MINUTE WRITE) * Rules rules and more rules. A halter shackled to my back and tied to a clothesline. When I was a toddler, I liked to wander off. My first memory, I tried to chase a puppy but could only go so far. First grade in the late 1950’s . News of the world and the Weekly Reader, Alaska and Hawaii became our 49th and 50th state. Drawing a swan swimming on a pond and the teacher telling me how good it was and putting in up on the bulletin board with 5 gold sticky stars on it. Getting in trouble for talking during class. Sitting in the corner with my face towards the wall.Total humiliation! Out for summer vacation, going to the quarry with my friends and swimming there at my own risk. I am not supposed to go there. Getting caught, getting in trouble and going to bed without any supper. Getting my first job as a lifeguard and having to perform CPR on a dummy that smelled like a Barbie Doll. Having my brothers always walk me home from school. A dead cat by the ditch where we cut through. My brothers told me not to look. Someone put a firecracker in its mouth and lit it on fire, that’s how it died poor thing. Sick people everywhere. Walking around as if they are totally normal while they secretly light firecrackers in a live cat’s mouth that they tied up – sick fuckers. Why are people so mean, answer me that? Why? * WordPlaya, June, 2006