Wow, this totally isn't supposed to be as preachy as it sounds. Please pretend those periods in "white" aren't there. It's just Dramatic Spaces, 'kay?
--

once upon a time there was a girl
who thought herself a genius
(she would save the world from itself)

but inside her overexcited dendrites
there grew a tumor: stinking cancerous
pulsing redgreenbluew h . i . . t . . . e

it ate her brain(s) away
turned her retinas inside-out and upside-down
dis joint ed distorted

she watched Sesame Street & Barney & Blue's Clues & Arthur &
except when she hid under her older brother's bed
and learned that the mafia is thicker than water

the world shriveled up and died
the post-apocalyptic cockroaches danced
the globe, deflated, sat in the (w)hole

left by an angry fist when her
favorite television program was

canceled.