Melodramatic Monologue

Dear Reader:
To introduce myself,
I have been given twenty one lines (or more?)
Who needs more?
I will not pull a Billy Collins you
and count the counting as lines themselves
(okay this is seven.)
Sometimes I lie,
but not well, not often.
Once you told me I was beautiful
the way I say crackerjacks and
type cast and crisscross easy over.
Béla Lugosi's dead
he's dead he's dead but I am not.
Born on a road that bore my family name
I am now outsider. The rocks in my yard
are not slate but chert, the beds of our river
are lime, not shale. The summers burn.
Dear Reader, will you help me finish my sentence?
I scratch lines on the concrete wall, counting.
Counting. I will be judged.
We are all, judged.


Survivor No form, Trigger 6