I was born down south in a big red farm,
With a silo and a she'd and a john in the backyard.
I learned pretty early that I had to have some skills-
The pigs in the blankets and the trough corn mills.
The raw cold winters that they had up north
Were nothing for the chatel that we had to milk at dawn.
And the rubbers that I'd put inside my heavy socks aurora
And the money that they kept when it'twas me whom it belonged.
I started writing letters to this boy when I was eight.
I met him through the penpals though it wasn't in my state.
And I went to school on a yellow bus and I waited just like everyone,
But I knew that deep inside their tomato sauce and shells,
That "I'd be compensated" for the lunches that they'd sell.
And when I grew to age eighteen and graduated school,
I knew that something smelled of smoke and doubted all their rules-
And to this day as older and fragile are my bones,
The lies with which they brought me up has made my life my own.