A List of Short Complaints

a child's notebook from outer space in the age of the apocalypse

Playing Rapunzel

Is much less fun

When the escape pod is launched into space.

Go in, my sister told me.

Go in, and I won’t tell Mom you stole the twenty dollar bill.

Now I am in space, and I like it just as much as I like my sister.

Someone rescue me, please.

COVID-19 is ruining my appetite.

When I go to stir my cauldron, I find it filled with boogers, among other fluids,

Sometimes stewed with diluted hearts,

Soupy brains,

And an even more decent helping of mucus stuffed bronchial tubes.

For anyone wondering, mucus does not taste good.

Not even feeding the food turmeric candies has worked,

And quarantining ruins my environmental pledge to only eat free range toddlers.

So please: vaccinate your children.

Otherwise, I’ll have to eat you instead of them.

Dear Generic Utopian Parental Assignment Society:

When I asked for a kid,

I meant a baby.

A toddler.

A teenager.

Maybe even a tweenager.

This is not a child.

This is a seed.

This is a seed that has grown into a Venus flytrap,

And while I do have to keep it fed, housed, burped, and entertained,

I want a real person,

Preferably one that doesn’t grow to the height of my ceiling,

Or try to eat my cat.

On that note:

Would you also please consider my application for a new pet grant and some herbicide?

Lee Johns