i ******* hate structure in every sense of the word. always have. any expecting mother, upon finding out that she's going to have a baby girl, suddenly begins spending all of her life's work on gingham overalls, and gigantic, faux-velvet bows to adorn her newborn daughter's bald head. my beautiful persian mama had nothing to worry about at first, she had it her way, and for a while, i was the baddest baby on the block, except i didn't have a block. i grew up on a dirt road on an island called whidbey in the north puget sound. much to fatima's dismay, all that little me wanted to wear once i turned six months old and developed a personality was big t-shirts with logos of bands whose music would keep me sane and my heart only half-broken seventeen years later. i wouldn't let her put pants on me. i would crawl around in my backyard in little more than an alice in chains shirt and a diaper, sometimes riding on my beloved golden retriever's back. i was young when my parents realized that they could try all they wanted, but their child, born on the cusp of gemini and taurus, was too much for them to handle. i started skipping class when i was in kindergarten; i would run out into the acres of heavy forest behind the playground during recess, and i'd be ****** if i decided i wanted to come back. in middle school, i would skip because growing up middle eastern in a post 9/11 society was enough for me to be bullied to a ****** pulp. in high school, i would skip because i wanted to smoke cigarettes behind the football field with my friends who couldn't go to class because they were tweaking too hard. we would make daisy chains and listen to everything that mark lanegan ever made. i was throwing my life away; well, at least that's what they told me, but i was happy. and it was cause i had been successfully fighting the man since before i could walk.