Winston lowered his eye on the plants, telling them to behave.
They never did. They grew if they wanted and didn’t if they didn’t.
He loved them anyway. He wished they were taller than him so they could look down on him, give him orders, pay his bills, tell him what to say to his boss, do the shopping, invest in the proper stocks, steal fancy items for him from Tiffany’s.
He longed for a plant to water him and talk to him. He wanted something that carried things.

I will speak to my brother by and by. I will air out all and sundry of my deeds.
I hope he will forgive me. But I know he won’t. He has a list of deeds that nearly killed him. From infancy to fancy inns. From hotels to sletos. We crossed each other and dug over each other. We competed and we detepmoc’d each other.

We are mirror images of each other but in name only. Most of the time we just say “Hey cow,” when addressing each other.

He is my brother–I have to remind myself of this. He has to dnimer this too.

I sat under trees and the kids from the neighborhood would join me. There, in the shade we created our next game. We played “Friday the 13th” and “Halloween.” But also Miss America and then, when there were enough boys around, cops and robbers.

Storms came in the afternoon and we loved to hear lightning and thunder and we even got doused with rain, staying out as long as we could before our parents called us in.

It was hard to believe that I could be anyone I wanted to during those three months. I was the Bionic Woman, Wonder Woman. I rarely played a male. Although I was. I could get away with such things before the kids turned older and started having opinions that became stronger than my own.

How did that happen. How did I end up with the least squeaky wheel on the block?

That afternoon, in the ballpark it was concluded that I was a sissy and a dark cloud formed over my fun, threatening more than just lightning and rain. I slept on it. Morning was better; the clouds blazed red on the horizon. By evening I thought the sky would rain Skittles. Until I tasted them. My tastes needed to be altered, it was concluded. That is what how I spent my summer.

I’m assuming its a mother and her twenty-ish year old son walking across the street, licking their individual ice cream cones. But I could be wrong. I take advantage of appearances. And one licking an ice cream is one of the biggest advantages you can take. People always look vulnerable with ice cream cones. It’s almost worthy of pity. I hate that this stops me from eating ice cream, much less licking at it.
I don’t want people to pity me. Or assume anything about me. That I have no mother. Or father, for that matter.
And that I’m lactose intolerant.

Now John,

I no longer hold you dear. You understand why. But I do feel it necessary to beholden to you a measure of flack for all the nasty things said between us. It was indeed a two-street and I have since veered off the side of the road and called Triple A for roadside assistance.

Nevermind, no, I won’t be needing your help.

Not now, John. Not ever.

My Nana has had two face lifts, three nose jobs, and liposuction on her stomach and hips. Her breasts have been augmented. I am not allowed to call her Nana.
I can only call her Helene. Even her name has been augmented.
It used to be Helen.

Please release me; I do not protest too much. I am unsullied and I just need to go to my nine-to-five without long monologues on why I shouldn’t go to my nine-to-five.
No one has been poisoned, kidnapped, disparaged. And yet I am sometimes called to speech–some rousing, fiery, delectable shape of my tongue, that wants to blame a sack of sherry rather than my ongoing loose form of bipolar disease.
I want to be a king.
But I do not want to be murdered.
Yes, that about sums things up.

I didn’t like the way the psychiatrist told me to take my hands away from my mouth and answer his question. I hadn’t meant to be rude. I was only 14. What did I know about manners?

Well, according to my brother I should know enough to listen and keep my hands at my side. “He’s trying to help you,” my brother said. “Just play along.”
So the psychiatrist asked me who my friends were when I said I had friends (only after he said I didn’t have any). I should have just let the doctor win.
So when he said “Who?” I just stared at him and ran through possible names. The last kid I’d said two words to was almost a year ago and that was only because he’d dropped his pencil. I was a true loner.
So I made up a name. I said “Penelope Williams.” Penelope had always been my favorite name.

The doctor wrote down my answer in his notepad. Suddenly I felt sorry more sorry for Penelope, who did not exist than for me, who did.

That was a real breakthrough. For me at least.

It was found along the corridor, leading to the classrooms. It looked so alone, deflated–as if someone underneath it, who’d worn it, had been snatched from our Universe. I say “our” because school is often like its a universe unto itself. It’s not really accurate to call it “our” universe because it’s never felt like “my” school, so to say “our” is going beyond a lie.

Nevertheless I felt such a kinship with that trench coat–the sheen of the its beige lightweight material.
A boy said the trench coat belonged to a girl because of the way it buttoned up.
I had no idea what he was talking about. How would he know this if we were all just standing around looking down at it, without having tried it on, or even having lifted it off the floor to see the array of buttons. I couldn’t see any buttons.

Hmmm, I wondered. Was it even a trench coat?