I am from light blue boxes
overflowing with beat-up Star Wars toys;
bent lightsabers
and a C-3PO with loose joints.

I am from vague memories,
not sure if they were real or just dreams.
Time blurring memory and reality into one.
The big white building,
the blue cotton candy,
the Ferris wheel.
Did any of that ever happen?

I am from the day we were trapped
in my friend’s basement.
Pounding on the door,
our small voices screaming for help.
Only to have her mother
open the door an eternity later,
denying she ever heard our cries.

I am from daycare
and the day my best friend Dana and I
scraped our knees on the fields of blacktop.
Transforming us
into bloody and inconsolable children.

I am from the vast treehouse
in my cousin’s backyard,
that is now just an aging pile of lumber
at our cabin.
A heap of junk,
coils of rusty barbed wire piled on top.

I am from pale green Lava soap,
getting hands clean like no other.
Then getting them dirty again
while playing on the basement floor.
Making a huge mess with a rainbow of Play-Dough,
meticulously pulling apart each section when I’m done,
making sure each color is clean of the other colors.

I am from the day when I was four
and my dad invited me to watch Pink Floyd’s The Wall with him.
Masked and uniformed children
marching along conveyor belts,
tumbling down into a giant meat grinder.
I am from crying on my first day of school,
surrounded by strange faces,
thinking I’d meet the same fate.

I am from creaky floorboards,
and nighttime silhouettes.
Knowing nothing awaits me
in the shadows,
but still convinced
something is there
to get me.

Pathetic attempts
to repress paranoia.
Trying so hard
to hold onto the past.
I am from those moments,
slowly being shaped into who I am.
Slowly learning to let go.