by Colton Lawrence

Don't judge me because I once lived in a plastic bubble.  It was around the time I was force-fed hot sauce for talking shit.  I was a menace at age 4 before I was socialized and little girls chased me because I had a blonde cowlick and pure soul and they wanted to eat me.  My tongue burned so bad I licked dew off the neighbor’s swing set as my smog lungs nearly killed me and they put me in the rectangular plastic thing that was not really a bubble and I could see the rippled images of New Zoo Revue and I can't remember if I poked holes in it but I probably did because I was a foul mouth terror and when the rectangular "bubble" didn't work and death came for me in the hospital I tore paper off my crayons and stuffed it into the tube to stop the manufactured air that tried in vain to clear the smog from my lungs and the man blessed me and I asked him when this bubble pops will there be evil little angel girls to eat my pure soul and he said I don't think they do such things to naughty boys with blonde cowlicks and the doctor came into the room and declared it was an ancient vestige in my body that filled me with junk, not the smog, and I turned to the man who blessed me and asked if that meant I'd be stuck in this peculiar bubble and he looked at me sadly and said, 

      “For a little while.”