when I was a child

some passing thoughts on my origin poem I will write some day

When I was a child, everything made sense. You could say “that’s because you didn’t know anything.” But do we know anything now, as adults? If anything, the only thing I know is that I don’t know much at all. “You were inexperienced and ignorant!” you reply. “This kid has lived more life already than many adults do” said my doctor when I was only seven.

Sometimes I spend my day wondering and jotting down ideas in notebooks; I do not care if they are good. I stay up late finishing a book. I sleep in late and eat pancakes. I hope I see my friends out when I take a walk around my block. My eyes widen at each new flower and pill bug in the grass.¹ I devour an ice cream—cone and all—and don’t even consider the sugar content. I haphazardly² run my own science experiments in the kitchen sink. I am an artist when I feel like it, and I read when I want to. Snowmen are alive, and I keep a magic wand stored in the ceiling that I can call upon whenever its powers are needed. I can feel without incessant thinking again. Time is only useful for calculating how long I have until recess. I am in awe nearly everything I see.Sometimes I am a child again.

Sometimes everything makes sense again.

1. roly-polly

2. hopefully less so now than then…