text reads:

Often, I imagined myself to be Laura Ingalls, of Little House on the Prairie, adored by her father, Charles. He wouldn’t beat his daughter for looking out at the world, out at no one and nowhere.

On those days, I would sit on his beloved brown leather ottoman and pee all over it. The warmth of it running down my legs, down the seams, and onto the creaky springs. I found pleasure in private, subversive acts like this.

a few years ago, he looked me in the eye and said of my mother “she is mine”.

I looked him back in the eye and replied, ” you can have her”.