What doesn’t kill you
makes you stronger,
wiser,
and strangely qualified to disappear in a third-world country.
But maybe that’s just the deluxe package.
I’ve been part of this experiment since the ’90s,
which means statistically
I should have grown a second head by now.
Food was the best scam.
“Feeding the world,”
they said,
while quietly inventing ingredients
that sound like rejected Star Wars characters.
I don’t trust food. I don’t trust people who pause too long before speaking.
I don’t trust people who remember things
that happened three presidents ago
and somehow involve me.
Get a hobby.
Raise a fern.
Learn pottery.
Stop collecting my life like baseball cards.
Meanwhile,
the gun has fired,
and somehow I’m still here. Actually sitting.
Hydrated.
Moderately annoyed.
Which is impressive,
considering I spent thirty-six years
on an island with a f**king maniac.
He was Trump to the Nth degree,
a mathematical impossibility
with opinions.
And guess what?
I’m here.
He’s not. What color are your socks?
Mine are red, white, and blue.
Not all red.
Not all blue.
This isn’t cable news.
Try to keep up.
I’m talking fifty shades of survival.
One step ahead of the bread line.
One step ahead of dehydration.
One step ahead of becoming a true-crime podcast episode.
And if they ever find me dead in my car
with the AC blasting
and the engine running,
they’ll shake their heads and say:
“Damn.
She was a tough one.”
Because she had a mission.
A plan.
An attitude problem.
And absolutely no intention
of letting reality
have the last word.
Corney Press 