“My dress. My shoes.”

Suicidal drivers fly by

without any regard for

our existance.

“I Dora. You Boots”

This time her baby fat

face glows as flashes

of orange neon steal

glimpses of her taunting

me.

“My Papatom.”

This time her cabbage patch

finger points to my father,

who is driving us home from

Walmart. He laughs a little at

the rage she has for me.

“My Nana.”

She screams as she promulgates

that her love is her possession,

and her love is her passion.

The lights of Walmart fade

and it feels like we shoot through

the man-made, canyon cuts of the

basin. She seems a little tired like

the firmaments of darkness calm her

down, and she looks out the window

and into the stars.

“Look at the moooon.”

She doesn’t know how to talk so well,

but her passion for the world keeps her

loving it as a place where anything is possible.

She takes off her seatbelt, scoots over to my side,

and makes me put on her new seatbelt.

She lays her head on her arm, and tells me to leave

it down, and looks up at me with adorable eyes,

and says, “ You Mine. Someday...”

And I smile a forced smile with shaky,

blurred eyes, and say under my breath.

I hope she never knows...

about the pain in the search for heaven...

and the pleasure in the ride to hell...