The Shining Child

Before the bargaining began

there was summer.

Cicadas sawing the air open,

the thick animal heat of afternoon,

bare feet blackened with dirt.

The world was small

and enormous at the same time.

Kitchen counters were mountains.

Trees were kingdoms.

The sky went on forever.

We hurled our little bodies

into swimming pools

that smelled like chlorine and sun.

Our hair tangled itself wild

around our heads.

We played house.

Played doctor.

Serious games.

Not serious at all.

We did not think too hard about it.

We explored each other

the way children explore

the edges of a field.

Then someone would shout

and we would run laughing

and throw ourselves

back into the water.

Everything rinsed clean.

If I go further back—

there I am

dancing inside the record player

my parents set on the floor.

Standing on the translucent lid

in the amber light of the room,

twisting side to side

to some colorful song,

absolutely certain

the whole world was meant

to see me.

Joy moved through me

like lightning.

I laughed like an animal.

Roaring.

Once so hard

milkshake shot out of my nose

in the backseat of the car

while my brother howled.

I cried just as easily.

Everything touched me.

I cried when my mother left

and I didn’t know

when she would return.

I cried at a cruel look

because I could not understand it.

I still don’t.

And the vacuum—

that monstrous machine

with its single blazing eye

and roaring crocodile mouth—

rolled across the carpet

like a beast hunting my feet.

I curled into the couch

small and shaking,

and the couch held me

like a gentle giant.

But the strange thing is—

I never knew I was small.

Inside myself

I was enormous.

Enormous enough

to dig to China with spoons

in my friend’s backyard.

Enormous enough

to believe our tiny arms

could carve a tunnel

through the center of the earth.

Enormous enough

to believe I could fly.

So I did.

Night after night

in dreams.

Magic was not rare then.

Magic was simply

how the world worked.

And then—

my hands were struck

for things I did not understand.

The glare of adults

burned into my skin.

Hands larger than mine

touched parts of me

that turned my body to stone,

freezing me inside of it.

My no’s

became yeses.

Or worse, silence.

And as I grew

the bigness of me

was tackled to floors,

dragged down hallways,

pinned into restraint

where I lived

days

months

years.

Still

the child inside me knew,

as children always know—

friends don’t hurt friends.

My adolescent self

tried to speak

the language of that child,

but the words came out furious,

and every time I spoke them

the world demanded

that I whisper,

that I shrink,

that I tell the truth

less truthfully.

Now

the shining child

is walking beside me again.

Not the cuttingly fierce shining

I learned to carve my path with.

Something older.

Something innocent.

The original heart.

And now

I am sharing my toys again.

Opening my hands.

Offering the sticky candy

I found in the bottom of my pocket—

sugar-glued,

covered in lint and hair,

a precious treasure.

I am sharing

because treasure

is treasure.

And joy

multiplies

when it’s allowed to shine freely.

Here.

Take some.

Or don’t.

The adult in me

stands nearby now

with a quiet hand on my shoulder.

Let them be afraid,

they say.

Let them be at ease.

Let them refuse.

Let them be confused,

for the child in them

has been hurt too.

And if someone tells me

to quiet down—

to laugh more softly,

to feel less fully,

to make my love small—

I will roar laughing.

Milkshake-through-the-nose laughter.

Whole-body laughter.

Animal laughter

that shakes the air.

Or I will roar crying,

as I do when the world

is too beautiful

or too cruel

to stay inside my ribs.

The adult holds the child

while the child throws open

every window of the heart.

And I am shining.

Simply because

shining

is what I do.

And somewhere

the cicadas are sawing the evening open.

Heat still rises from the pavement.

Chlorine hangs in the air.

Children run screaming toward the pool

and hurl their small bright bodies

into the water.

And I am there again—

sun on my shoulders,

summer roaring through my chest—

laughing

like the world

is endless

like living

is almost over.