roller_coaster raze somewhere in the world there's a small flake of resin-coated paper that was once a picture of me. the last time i was brave enough to trust a steel bar and gravity to keep me from falling while a chain pulled a train up a lift hill, the on-ride camera caught me mid-scream. i met myself when i was back on the ground. my face was a mess of joy and terror. it made me laugh. i would have bought that photograph, but i didn't have any money on me, and my mother was too busy stealing what was mine to spend any of hers on something i wanted. years before i was born, my father sat on a ride like that. no one noticed the broken limb of a tree hanging above the track until it was too late. it looked low enough to take their heads off. certain he was about to die, the man who made me turned to the man who initiated the awkward act that brought him into the world as a sea of strangers lost their minds and saw someone who wasn't even there. 241128 what's it to you? who go blather from