I came home to a girl with dark hair, cut short around her head, stirring marinara sauce and munching popcorn in the dark. We curled up in front of Netflix for a couple hours and I forgot more things, days, amounts of money, addresses, people I know, it all. There was a lot of curling up today.

I have started to ask myself serious questions. Am I the woman carrying a filing cabinet to her classroom? Am I four years old eating pizza at a table in the cafeteria? Was I featured in People magazine for losing weight? Did I run into a tree and suck my thumb next to a girl's knee? Did she pick the rubber mulch out of my hair and tell me "What do you have in here, toothpaste?" Did I not understand until tonight, in her arms, that outer space was not pretend? I gave birth to twins and found them sitting in the lap of a girl, watching a movie, then repeated how dark it was in the room three times.

Do I look darker to a person coming in from the light? I felt a little stranded next to a farm house, but also managed to buy a cappuccino and park in front of the lake where it was hard to see the stars. Red, blinking towers stretched out before me like dim and alien souls in this mess of children and pregnant newly weds. God save us all.