This was my second chapbook. It started as an attempt to use surrealist horror to convey the feelings of having grown up in a cult without making people refer back to their own lives as a reference point, which at the time I believed prevented people from truly empathizing due to inaccurate assumptions I saw as inevitable when someone uses their own life as the reference for normal. I wrote this right after college, when I felt like I struggled to connect with others due to not having had the "universal experiences" of those who had had a "normal upbringing." I got through college by basically never talking about my history or lying about it and saying I was homeschooled, in order to avoid having to explain something heavy that I found impossible to fully explain due to how different it was, and how much every anecdote would lead to more things that needed more context. The chapbook, ultimately, is about the frustration of this communication barrier. I think some of the poems are decent, and some are lazy confessionals about something I knew would interest people due to being sensational and voyeuristic.
Still, people frequently tell me, even today, that this one is their favorite.