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" The first & only time you were eight you remember remembering being seven& the religious fear that filled youwhen you realized, growing up means dying. Even worse than dying,forgetting. If you were previously made of streamersnow you alternated between thumbtacks & gelatin. Around this time the sky birthed guilt& it rained into your bones every daysweet. Good morning, thing I will carry the rest of my life you should have said when the thingthat made you part of yourself, childhood-altering thingall childhoods run temple-first into, firstsmarted. But you didn’t know any betterthan to assume life was a series of eventsthat moved, that didn’t get stuck on each other & stretch forwards & backwards: but the brainis a piece of taffy on a fork, the brain your brain is a simple concoction of sugars & time,& you are not always your brain. The last & only time you were eightyou became nine. "

- Ruth Ann Baumann, “Small”