Allegedly

by Tiffany D. Jackson

I stopped asking questions and in six years I have not run into one adult who would do me the common courtesy of explaining why something is happening to me. I guess killers don’t deserve respect, so I’ve stopped expecting it.

I was the nine-year-old who killed a baby. Allegedly. That’s the word they always used.

It’s easier to keep an animal in a cage than to play with it.

I’m fire, trapped in ice, ready to turn into wildfire and burn everything down around me.