Here's my resume.

Born in Bridgeport, Texas.
1973.
Teenage parents.
Cherokee on both sides.
Can't prove it.
So. No free house. No free land.
Too much Swiss, French, Irish
and Scottish gives me some kind
of privilege.
Can't prove that shit, either.
First job was probably a lemonade stand.
I've blocked a lot of shit out.
I remember a dark basement.
Eating peaches out of jars.
I remember French kissing
my favorite cousin
in our grandmother's closet
when I was seven and he was eight.
Dad's black leather belt.
Dad's killer cobalt eyes.
Dad's disapproving drawl.
John Belushi on "Saturday Night Live."
Tony's pizza.
Asthma attacks.
Nightmares inspired by "Little House on the Prairie."
Potsy serenading Joanie.
Tiger Beat posters on my walls.
Walking away from the rental house
(jug of Jack Daniels on top of the fridge)
when I was six
carrying my dad's cowboy hat
with the rattlesnake rattle in the band
and his old billfold filled
with pictures of him in cheap motels
with his one night stands.
The King James Bible.
"If it ain't King James it ain't right."
(Fred Rainwater)
In Midland I babysat a bunch of brats.
Ate their parents' Nacho Doritos,
watched softcore porn on Cinemax.
Danced around to Beatles records.
Imagined myself being some man's girl.
At sixteen I got a job at Burger Time
to pay for my first speeding ticket.
Bought a guitar. Pawned it.
Imagined myself Jessica Wakefield
the popular cheerleader
or Elizabeth Wakefield
the popular writer.
Either way I would win. Someday.
Hid in my closet with scented markers.
Imagined myself some kind of rainbow.
Read fairy tales believed fairy tales
at sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen.
Never got asked to prom.
I was pretty in pink without the sewing skills.
No Ducky or Blane in sight.
No Psychedelic Furs.
Slow to grow late to bloom.
When I was sixteen I wanted to marry Ringo.
After graduating from Fredericksburg Christian
(the principal lectured me on the evils of astrology)
I got a job as a cashier at Diamond supermarket.
Fired after a couple of months.
I sucked at counting money.
Waited a few tables in Kerrville.
They didn't like me much at the Bluebonnet Cafe.
I sucked at flirting with short order cooks.
I lacked a bubbly personality.
I didn't have bouncy tits and blonde hair.
Bad native Texan.
Where's your personality?
Where's your proof?
Are you sure you weren't born in New York?
Gal, you gotta SMILE
and MEAN that shit!
Mom taught me how to make peach cobbler.
Mom told me not to ask for favors
without my lipstick on.
I thought I'd die an old maid
but before I hit thirty
I married a man from New York.
He dug my poems and pre MySpace selfies.
He thought I gave good xanga.
Then I left the man from New York
for a man from New Mexico
and he helped me put together a zine
I called Instant Pussy.
I was an instant small press success.
I rocked mics from Albuquerque to Santa Cruz.
But I had to work double shifts as a security guard
to afford the airfare so I was still a loser.
Had a nervous breakdown working as a security guard
at the Citi Bank call center.
Husband #2 said stay home, little lady.
I'll slay the working class dragons for us both.
And we made a baby in 2007.
Year of the Golden Pig.
And I waited in line for WIC
and I waited in line for emergency food stamps
during the third or fourth hurricane evacuation
and I fell in love with poets slash editors
from Liverpool to Oakland
while sleep deprived
and anxious and depressed
and shackled and closeted
dreaming of Evan Stone
and a brighter day
when I would be muse to some
porn star slash comedian slash politically savvy
cult hero of social media.
I fell in love with a plumber slash plasma donor
and toughed it out in a bedbug infested
travel trailer in Balcones Heights.
Someday he would love me as much as he loved
the mother of his four sons and we would live
happily ever after hangover to hangover
in Corpus Christi, Playboy calendar on the wall,
our anniversary circled in red.
I wrote a few books.
I maintained a crazy ass blog
that would make Pinterest mommies from
Ohio to New Hampshire scratch their
suburbia smug heads.
I'll never make it to AWP or Bread Loaf
or Iowa Writers' or St. Mark's
but I've been on The Billy Madison Show
with my purple elephant vibrator
and I can still hula hoop at 42
and I'm still standing in front of a mountain
with a plastic spoon in one hand
and a black pen in the other.
I know nada.
I am nada.
But I love my son.
He's eight.
So I need to stay alive.
I'm available all hours.
Give me eighty hours a week
and a free membership to Planet Fitness.
I can start
tomorrow.