I Was Unemployable When I Got Out

It's Often Said That A Traumatic Experience Early In Life Marks A Person Forever, Pulls Her Out Of Line, Saying, "stay There. Don't Move.

Children Learn To Speak Male Or Female The Way They Learn To Speak English Or French.

They Had Killed Themselves Over Our Dying Forests, Over Manatees Maimed By Propellers As They Surfaced To Drink From Garden Hoses; They Had Killed Themselves At The Sight Of Used Tires Stacked Higher Than The Pyramids; They Had Killed Themselves Over The Failure To Find A Love None Of Us Could Ever Be. In The End, The Tortures Tearing The Lisbon Girls Pointed To A Simple Reasoned Refusal To Accept The World As It Was Handed Down To Them, So Full Of Flaws.

I Was Born Twice: First, As A Baby Girl, On A Remarkably Smogless Detroit Day In January Of 1960; And Then Again, As A Teenage Boy, In An Emergency Room Near Petoskey, Michigan, In August Of 1974.

I've Never Had The Right Words To Describe My Life, And Now That I've Entered My Story, I Need Them More Than Ever.