I smoked my first cigarette two years before 1984, a girl gone bad busted going against gravity of the grounding authority, skipping school somewhere between synthesizers staining stereos and skyscrapers scratching night’s neon life. Ever try taming a teenager whether hot for teacher or tailored to the teeth in concert tees with razor blade sleeves, spandex, and faded jeans?

I could’ve walked to Panama twice while restricted. Confined to solitary, sitting on a second-
story windowsill, I machete minutes blowing broken Viceroy halos, Dad’s packs stashed in
jacket pockets hanging in my closet. Clawing my conscience, I’m sleeping beneath a plastered
ceiling where rock ‘n’ roll posters skydive after midnight, showing off their shock and awe,
peeling paint taped in rebellious restraint.

Granted an evening release on my own recognizance, I venture to Van Halen’s venue, climb on
top Jimmy, draping drop dead legs over a stranger’s shoulders, scoping Sammy Hagar scream
singing on stage before the Kingdome’s implosion.

Returning to serve my sentence drenched in sweat and remnants of Marlboro reds, I whisper to
walls waiting for a way to excavate a Shawshank escape, restless.

High-pitched siren sounds
signal time to jump around
but I’ll wait until
nineteen-eighty-eight because
House of Pain hasn’t been born