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At age 10 a strange man in a car offered her candy.
she took a handful and ran away, laughing.
When he came back in a few days, she greeted him with some rocks. Thrown through his windshield.
She ran away again, but that time nobody was laughing

At 16 a boy in a car asked for a favor, and she obliged.
When she asked for some reciprocity he refused.
More than a little frustrated, she had him get out so she could get dressed, then locked him out,
and turned the key.

"Its a stick!" he yelled,
but she already knew that, showing him her middle finger as she burned rubber.

When she was about 25, she was helping a guy fix a crank shaft.
Beautiful, even in a sweatshirt and cutoffs, but she was no bystander.
Hard at work with a wrench, she had burnt oil halfway up her arms
dark burgundy, almost black which was, by chance,
the color of her hair that week.


At 30, she'll be driving her own car, top down, radio turned up to 12.
She'll have her sleeves pulled up and her boots on; nobody next to her.
She'll be going into the sunset at 80, with no destination. None at all.



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happy birthday to you!

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