[raygunpk]

so we’re all growing up now and we’re not anything like what we used to be and we’re not anything like the pictures of us that our parents took when we were five and splashing around naked in the blue kiddie pool that our dads filled with cool hose water but I don’t want to move on because I liked the way I was when I was a toddler and I liked the world the way I saw it when I was little and I want to be truly excited about the ice cream man again and I want to think I’m rich when I find a quarter on the ground and I want to go back to the time when bubble baths were acceptable forms of bathing and I want to find shapes in the clouds again and love rolling down the hill and I want to be able to put my baby teeth under my pillow for quarters in the morning and I want to once again love the glow sticks my parents bought for my brother and I that we would keep in the freezer so they’d last longer and take out every night and stare at them under our bed sheets until we fell asleep and my parents would sneak in and put them back in the freezer for tomorrow and I want to spend hours trying to catch butterflies and I want to make mud pies and wear little tiny rain boots and splash in puddles and I want to be excited about getting goldfish at the pet store and I want to trade candy with my brother after a night of trick-or-treating and I want to fit comfortably under my bed and I want to get lollipops when I get my hair cut and I want to diligently make leprechaun traps that never work and I want to finger paint and I want to sing the alphabet song and not understand how to tell time and I want to be tucked into bed at night and I want my nightlight with Winnie the Pooh on it back and I want to cry about skinned knees and laugh about knock-knock jokes and really truly love Dr. Seuss again and not fake-trying-to-be-cool loving it but this-is-the-same-book-you-read-to-me-every-night-of-the-year-but-I-want-you-to-read-it-to-me-again loving it and I want to not care how I look and not care what people think and I want to be excited about jigsaw puzzles that are too easy and I want to be able to spend ten hours drawing monsters on the concrete with chalk and not notice that a whole day has gone by and I want to not know that my race is different from your race and I want to be able to cry whenever I want to and I want to know that everything is always okay.