she taught us everything we knew. the original punk rock queen, harder-core than thou, sleeping in the streets, flipping off strangers and showing everyone her ass. no skinny heroin girl, she was big and burly and won more fights with the local frat boys to be than any boy in our gang ever could have. she shot snot rockets and bled all over the place and drank shit beer in a single gulp and laughed and laughed that wicked, nihilistic laugh. and she was as brilliant as a beacon, drawning to herself all the aspirees, whose faces she spit in and trampled their green day tapes.

and one day she disappeared, so we assumed she'd run away to live on bigger streets and face bigger enemies of the power of anarchy. all we recollected was the shaved head, the dirty clothes, the i dare you smirk, the raspy voice shouting curses over the sleepy heads of the broken place we grew up. and we all had our little trinkets of her - treasures of shoplifting and dubs and zines offered only to the select few.

one year we all came home.. i from back east, skrilla from seattle, the rest.. and there she was. but wasn't.

she wanted to be called katie. her mom had bought her a car (who knew she had rich parents?) and she was working in a wildlife preserve or some such. she was in love with cute little animals and wearing neutral colors and so fucking squeaky clean she glowed. she was taking my art class and painting lovely landscapes full of lush foliage and dancing bears and traditional symbols of femininity. i couldn't even speak to her. i avoided it. i didn't know what to say.

and we knew it was over, then. no matter how punk we thought we were, how convinced of our strength, there she was, showing us that convictions don't last a lifetime. there she was giggling, drinking microbrews, dating the same failed frat boys she beat up in high school. a different person.

she was still our leader, so we all followed suit.