A Limerick

When I was a child, I was a bit of a snoop.. a sneak. Not a thief, mind you, but I always found quite a thrill going through peoples things. I still do but have the sense and decency to keep my dirty little mitts to myself. My aunt lived upstairs from us in an apartment building several times in my life. We moved a lot, she stayed where she was, and we usually came back to live in that crappy apartment underneath hers..a need to be with family, I suppose. So every once in a while, through the years, I would sneak upstairs just to look around. We had a secret stairwell from the inside of the 2 apartment building and the door was never locked, so I could literally sneak up there and spend hours looking at her possessions.. never touching them or anything, just looking. I would look at the figurines she had and wonder where they came from and what compelled her to buy them. I would look in her refrigerator to see her groceries. I would look at her smelly soaps and wonder why they were never used.. Then one day I came across a book of  Dirty Limericks. I had no idea what a Limerick was but I opened the book and read one.. I remember it word for word to this very day

There once was a girl from Peru

Who had nothing whatever to do

So she sat on the stairs

And counted cunt hairs

Three thousand, Nine hundred, and Two

I loved my aunt Joanie. She was a hard woman jilted by the men and children in her life. I made her a sandwich the day after Christmas before her and my mother went shopping. She ate, got dressed in her new clothes, came downstairs, sat on my couch, vomited and died. Massive heart attack. I always knew I took after her, her ways, her strength.. and made some changes to give myself a softer edge than she had.. but she lives inside of me and I know she's somewhere.. sitting on the stairs..counting cunt hairs..and laughing her fucking ass off.