Six Word Memoir - Sestina Form

So I wrote this six word memoir for my English class last year. It's in the form of a Sestina, which is a really cool, and kind of complicated, poetic form. Basically you have six stanzas of six lines, each with the same six end words repeating in a predetermined order, and a final stanza of three lines which uses the six end words. It's pretty awesome. Anyway, while I was walking home today, the first stanza popped into my head, and I wanted to share this with you. I hope you enjoy!

My father always said I was a hippie

biker chick, a private joke between the

two of us, like the "Hannah

banana from Montana" joke he constantly says, smiling at

my feigned annoyance. I get my revenge by laughing

at him, when I'm not laughing with him at the world.

I suppose I am a product of my world

so I'll blame him for my hippie

tendencies. Still, some of the responsibility lies with my laughing

mother, the ubiquitous gentle presence in my life. The

next load of blame I lay at

my brothers' feet - the reasons I was called Ja-Hannah

or even Je-Hannah

in my childhood. They exposed me to their world

of music - at

home, or as we got older, at "hippie"

house shows showcasing folk and punk and other genres - the

urge to start laughing

stifled at being in the presence of so many older non-laughing

people. James and Jesse would introduce me as their little sister, Hannah

and I would smile and shake the

hand of another dreadlocked person - the ever expanding world

of my hippie

friends recorded at

home in my journal, late at

night after arriving back at the house, laughing

at my encounter with a hippie

or two. In the morning, my parents would ask "Hannah,

how was last night?" and I would tell them of my experiences in James' world

careful to leave out the

sordid details - with the

suspicion my father already knows and at

the same time, to spare my mother worry for James and his world.

Because when she's worried, she's no longer laughing

and we're her babies: James, Jesse, and Hannah,

and we're all a kind of hippie.

Hippie Hannah

Laughing at

the World