Age 5

at age 5 s/he woke up scared in the early morning, with a notion that momma thought should’ve been more complex for him/her to fear or understand or at least come to terms with at such an early moment in life--- “i’m going to die, mom…i’m going to die…” & s/he kept on repeating it with precious tears streaming which carried the innocence of a child that held an independent horror, not polluted by the outside, not tarnished by the mutual mass myths of fellow schoolchildren--- momma ran her fingers through her child’s hair to calm her/him & with nothing else to say, confronted with the stark reality of the subject at hand, she lied & told the little one, “don’t worry, because there is a wonderful place that you go to if you’ve been good on earth, after death---it’s called heaven.”