"If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave."

~Mo Willems

Has this ever happened to you?

It's happening to me. Like I've fallen into the wrong timeline. All the exits seem to be blocked and the rules, well, there are none. And the players, they are all shape-shifters.

I'd never heard of Mo Willems before reading this quote. I missed a lot of the standard children's books growing up. I was never read to - I always read to myself, starting pretty early. I was mostly stuck with what was in our school library (scant), and the few books I could beg my mother into buying when the book sales came around. I never read Dr. Seuss, or Shel Silverstein and I didn't read Where the Wild Things Are until college! The first book I remember reading was in 2nd grade - it was Harriet Tubman's biography. My school was predominantly African-American and we'd take trips to the African-American History Museum each year. I pretty much read all the books about the slavery era I could, from 2nd to 4th grades, and then switched to books about the Holocaust.

I was always one for light reading.

But I think I missed the stuff that gives people a foundation in feeling safe - or at least, not threatened.

I would like to be able to write myself out of this particular story, but it seems to be writing me.

Oh - I have some poems in the new issue of Wicked Banshee Press - Surival Through Art. Please check them out if you have time.
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