• this recipe is only meant
    to serve as a rough guide
    ingredients are given here
    but not the real inside

    you take your standard innocent
    your standard model child
    you throw her in a dryer and
    you let her mind run wild

    you give her grownup literature
    you give her hens to feed
    you give her pen and paper
    and you give her books to read

    you tell her many stories
    tales of fairies, tales of space
    you fill her head with fantasy
    and heart with paper lace

    then just for balance, tragedy
    a family out of tune
    worse genes than you could ever know
    and do it all too soon

    then take away her fantasies
    and throw her into school
    she'll toughen up, she'll make it work
    or she'll just suffer through

    you give her a few secrets
    that she cannot tell her friends
    a few dreams based in sorrow
    some beginnings doomed to end

    you paint her name with ridicule
    she'll stand out in a crowd
    her memories will haunt her sleep
    things she just can't live down

    you give her quickly browning hair
    blue eyes, pink skin, no tan
    you make her want to hide herself
    but not so that she can

    you do all this to this one child
    and who knows what you'll get
    a prodigy, a genius,
    or just a howling mess

    mix all ingredients and blend
    then bake for half an hour
    she'll come out sweetly when she's done
    though just a little sour.