Improvements
Cyclone fences, kudzu, and hunting gloves. Boykin and CDs. We sleep in separate beds, sharing a room with a tight-lipped portrait of Bear Bryant guarding us from cacodemons and hellhounds. The raw meat touched the lettuce, I flinched at the hamburger, I ate it halfway off my chair, ready to run. We snuck away with your aunt for cigarettes in the garage, and I saw half of my first cockroach, dying on the ground, little legs pleading their case to the bottom of the cousin's shoe. Your grandma talks my ear off while you’re bowling, while your grandpa watches an episode of Law and Order SVU that he’s already seen, but forgotten. She tells me I can’t tell anyone what she’s told me. “What's wrong dear?” Your father asks me, I'm crying in the sunroom. Improvement on the drive to Selma.
The men are laughing loudly, she and her companion are the subject of the jokes, that's obvious, she is afraid of what is happening.
Your aunt takes us to Ulta, gives me and your sister each one hundred dollars. I’m not allowed to tell. She isn’t feeling well. She vomits in the parking lot, and sleeps in the car. I’m not allowed to tell.
These were the things I learned:
I could’ve shot a long barrel when I was nine, but I didn’t. Because I was in California.
I’m in “real” America now.
Expectant mothers can park in a designated spot in the lot at the shooting range.
BEWARE OF DOG doesn’t really mean there’s danger, and I can't wait in the car.
On the plane ride home, you fought the flight attendant about a bottle of tomato juice, and I hid like a child under my blanket. Dallas Fort Worth, with a family in matching shirts:
FAMILIES THAT LOVE CUPCAKES ARE FAMILIES THAT STICK TOGETHER
They might be right, I'd argue it is families who forbid you to tell.