she wanted to be a cheerleader…kind ya see on TV with short shorts and high boots dancin’ on the 50 yard line at half time…makin’ men whistle and carry-on like wild savages set loose in the woods for the first time…hoopin’ and a hollerin’…yellin’ out profanities…she wanted that…

and she’d flip ’round the channels every Sunday to see ’em…blondes and brunettes with deep cleavage and their hair styled just right…smilin’…always smilin’…she wished she could smile…

was a cheerleader in high school…dated a football star who was the father of her child…got pregnant in the winter after her senior year…didn’t listen to reason…mom and dad told her to give it up for adoption…said she didn’t know what to do with a baby…the raisin’ of a child…just wouldn’t listen…

so she took off one night…had some money saved from workin’ at the DQ…not much…just ‘nough to make her way to Dallas…she had dreams…

and she gotta job at ‘nother fast food place…Big Earl’s Barbeque out on Henry Hines Blvd…told everybody back home that the job was just temporary…get her through the rough times…till she had the kid…they didn’t know what to believe…

she’d eat barbeque every night…worried ’bout her weight but the kid inside demanded more…so…she ate and ate and ate ’til she was ready to pop…and one night she did…

had the child in September at the start of football season…a little girl she named Riley…decked her out in a little Cowboys cheerleader out fit…she was proud of her darlin’…wanted her to grow up to be somethin’ special…special…

those dreams she had of bein’ a cheerleader were startin’ to fade with every pound she put on…she’d hide her pain in piles of barbeque…French fries…and large chocolate shakes…baby’d be in bed asleep and she’d stay up watchin’ the Monday night games just a weepin’ and ballin’…blamin’ herself for her dreams gone wrong…all wrong…

you can still catch her every lunch hour at Big Earl’s Barbeque…servin’ up the finest tomato based Texas que in town…she’d hide out by the dumpsters with the Mexicans smokin’ cigarettes…after her shift…one of ’em boys asked her to marry him…bought her a ring and everything…promised her the world…

she said no…she’d given up on her dreams…given up on cheerleadin’…given up on bein’ loved…