It was midnight.

I was riding in the back seat

of my aunt and uncle’s tiny blue car

congested between my two cousins.

I fell in and out of sleep

across the hour-long drive from my family’s

purley country-location of a house

where corn fields, farm houses, and Amish lived

to where the city suburbs grew.

Unfortunately—I awoke

seemly close to our destination.

With full consciousness,

my wide ears couldn’t really prepare

for what they were about to endure:

“secure the firearms”

before I step foot inside.

Like I’m within the sorts of a suicide bomber,

tempting to explode.

Say, or do the wrong thing

and I will let go.

I feel like a suicide bomber.

As selfish they come,

wrapped in criminal acts.

A sad story

waiting to unravel.