[To be a child again.]

To be a child again. Is my wish. Something earthy and pleasant. Something before knowledge. Before. Me and the kids down the street making wooden gravestones with our names on them for Halloween, before we knew that one kid would die. How the gravestones lived with us years after, in the garage. Childhood, like a collaboration between you and everyone outside of you. Colluding to make you something. To create something out of you. Colluding to teach you something sour. So many little moments that divide our life into before and after. Before grief, before disappointment. Before you knew to notice the glass of whiskey your mother keeps refilling. Before you notice the way it helps her blast off into space. In space, all is quiet. All the voices become one voice and you start to feel aggregate, a sort of everything. This is the part you should distrust the most. Hoping to be absorbed in everything, you were nothing. And it showed. The way your face couldn’t stop your crying. The way your body couldn’t keep your baby in. It showed straight through to that thing—the one you wanted gone.

Read more from Issue 19.1.