People of Watertown! Hear my plea!

Its not you; it’s your children. They are ruining it for everyone. They are surly and obnoxious. They fear no man. They linger in the shadows, hiding in the dark places where old beer cans linger and trash bags stop swirling and rest. They sneer as you drive past, avoiding your eye, but challenging you from beneath their furrowed brows. Have you raised a city of feral beasts?

Shackle them! Shackle them, I say! Let them taste the willow switch! Help them to know how meaningless they are! For your dark places, dear people of Watertown, are overrun with these feral beasts. And they are not studying late at the library, as they have claimed. They are under a bridge by the river where the cops don’t come by and they can smoke their cigarettes in peace.

I am aware of these truths, People of Watertown. I am aware because I know of these children. I am one of them returned. I am a feral child sprung from your riverbed, loosed on the county trunk highways. I walk again through your garbage strewn alleyways. I prowl across the parking lots surrounding the parkways.

But it is different now. This time, Watertown, I stop to pick up the trash in those alleyways. I chase the rat-children back to their homes.

Help me. Help me. Help me to help you, Watertown. Let me in. Let me in. Let me in.