Martha woke up early and began combing the rats out of her hair with her thick bristled brush that also doubled as her first ***** the summer before she had turned eighteen and could legally go to an adult store and have her pick of *** toys. Martha often thought of that first experience when her hands gripped the handle tightly and she would often smile fondly and sinfully at the memory. She brought the brush to her hair and counted each brushstroke from roots to split ends until she reached 100 on the left side of her head and repeated the process on the right side of her head until her unruly auburn hair found some semblance of order.

She looked at herself in the mirror and smiled. Martha was not conceited nor too pretty but felt that she was a healthy mix of feminine wilds and tomboyish charms. She considered herself the girl next door even tho her nearest neighbor was twenty miles up the well traversed road and on the opposite side. Martha slid off her nightgown and pulled on her favorite pair of white cotton ******* before putting on a red bra. Martha did not care that they did not match nor would others’ opinions bother her if they somehow saw her in her unmentionables. She slid into a pair of ragged jeans that had tears in them from working in the family garden and a black tshirt that was loose but not loose enough to hide her curves.

She gave herself one more quick pleased look in the mirror and paused her eyes on her brush once more and walked out of her bedroom down the stairs and into the kitchen where the coffeemaker was making her a fresh *** having been programmed to do so the night before. Martha drank her coffee black and could not understand why anyone would mask the taste with milk and sweetener.

She poured herself a cup and went into the living room where her father was already awake sitting in his reclining chair reading the newspaper. Martha sat down on the couch and inquired about her favorite baseball team but her dad said he had yet to get to the sports and did not know the outcome. She asked to be told when he found out and he said he would let her know.

Martha finished her coffee in silence while her father read. She stood up, went back into the kitchen, rinsed her mug out in the sink, and yelled to her dad that she was going out and would be back in a little bit. She saw the top of his head over the chair nod okay and she walked out the kitchen’s screen door into the backyard where she kept her car parked.

Martha unlocked the car and opened the trunk, pulled out a container of gasoline and walked back to the perimeter of the house and began to slosh the fuel along the foundation and the siding. She put down the emptied container and went back to her car and slid into the drivers seat, put the key into the ignition and cranked it until it started.

She fumbled with the dial on the radio until she found a station she could tolerate and took a cigarette out of the glovebox and lit it, inhaling its fumes before tossing it half smoked towards the house.

As Martha watched the flames begin to grow from embers into an inferno, she put the car in reverse and left the driveway before moving the gearshift to drive and taking off down the road, sending a pile of dust into the air as her tires grabbed for traction on the dirt road and she sped out of sight of her house without looking back.

Anomalous earthling inhabited
mancave quarantined
cocooned gamesomely
knowingly protected travesty
impossible mission sidestepping,
thwarting, zapping
eventuality, inevitability,

opportunity utilitarian death
crowning glory fêted within
netherlands immortality
granted courtesy biological
proliferation offspring re
vitalizing, restoring,
requenching spent human lives.

Self sequestration commenced
instant (karma) fertilization set
narration mein kampf within
womb mommy dearest,
she within prime ovulation age
begat me in utero un-
aware how existential crisis
(mine) linkedin metaphor

whereat sanctity housing
yours truly during embryonic
/fetal development + vital
placental lifeline keyed into
present day self (christened
Matthew Scott Harris) still
analogously tethers (as
iterated above) outward adult.

He considers metamorphosis
child to adult incomplete
early during carefree preschool
boyhood heavenly bliss
short lived spunky spontaneity
squelched after first grade
February 28th, 1968 marked
turning point pronouncing
significant psychological

cleavage figuratively pitched
emotional, mental, and
spiritual withdrawal symptomatic
psyche quashed, torqued,
and wrenched full blown cycle
logical gearshift hijacked,
though undoubtedly propensity
inherent since... birth
genetic/chromosomal aberration.

Especially when fatherhood
food me gifted with beauty
full daughter diagnosed at
tender age developmental delay
within asperger's syndrome
thankfully Shana Punim, (a
person's face endearment
appellation - chiefly in Jewish
use) eligible recipient

to receive early onset supportive
services, which initial diagnosis
undertaken within her
first birthday, thus staunching
immense struggles later.
Supportive services incorporated
battery audiological, cognitive,
emotive... tests to help pinpoint diagnosis.
She underwent cost free

(needs based) therapy - most
times resistant and noncooperative
(nonresponsive) to
engage whole heartedly,
but bonding with facilitators
wrought budding relationship
with concomitant trust.
Participation with therapists
and class/campmates (the

latter structured summer programs
pertinent as she evinced
able bodied/minded
to benefit with stepped up
socialization (interpersonal
interaction - or lack thereof)
immediately apparent as preschooler,
but got bolstered
thru confidence building activities.

All thru k-12th grade
our cherished progeny
benefitted being streamlined with
classwork (and take home)
assignments custom tailored,
plus after school
remedial programs boosted flagging
shortcomings allowing,
enabling, and providing laudable

transformations, whereby
she began (to assert herself in
making major decisions),
now at age twenty one (born
February 4th, 1999) lives
with few housemates in Bend,
Oregon while matriculating
at nearby Community College.