i am three years old and holding my grandfather’s hand. it is calloused and rough and i don’t have the words for sensation or hard work or lifetimes yet. i rub a soft thumb up and down the grooves of his skin and wonder why it is so different from mine. my sneakers light up and my hat is too big and my hair, which just keeps getting longer, flies around my face. we’ll feed the ducks bread because it is 2001 and the internet is barely old enough to tell us much of anything, let alone proper nutrition for ducks. i am three years old and it is 2001 and there is nothing to heal from. i know nothing of darkness and how it will eat us all alive, quietly at first – before fully enveloping everything that makes us human. 
my eyes are bright and young and soft.

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