to let me know where they could find me
(can you believe it takes a real parent to get you out of juvie?)
and they released me bright and early, Monday morning,
I was a tougher girl
with a new connection.
Cause and Effect
The admitting clerk was irate.
She had to redo all the paperwork,
using my real name.
She made me wait for almost two hours
while she drank coffee and shuffled files.
The counselor assigned to my case
was unsympathetic. He read my folder,
nodding and hmmming.
He told me being a loser was easy, then
ordered 24 hours community service.
Scott sulked like a pissed puppy. He
would have preferred lockup to my
picking up trash along the highway.
He refused to say one word, and his
silence told me all I needed to know.
Mom manufactured a plethora
of tears to accompany her
long-suffering mother diatribe.
She had plenty to say about deceit,
distress, and sexually transmitted diseases.
Jake was enthralled by the whole
idea of my temporary incarceration,
and the reasons behind it.
He wouldn’t shut up, just kept