Tell me something that made you happy as a child?

sitting in the woods by myself, turning over rocks to look at the salamanders, building "cabins" out of the down trees, making potions with the random pots and buckets of rain water on the porch, fireflies, baby chickens, my cats, lovebirds, playing w my siblings

hearing Mom come home from work, finding out a cat is pregnant, a new litter of kittens outside,

finding out there's enough money for me to get a new pair of pants and a couple shirts for school this year, finding out the electric bill is getting paid so the lights will be on—

fruit salad, school supplies, watermelon, gardening without getting yelled at,
kickball with my siblings on the rare occasion it didn't end in fighting or somebody getting beamed with a kickball so hard they cry and we all feel too bad to keep playing or makes the teams uneven—

watermelon again, popsicles, kung fu movies, hanging w my sisters, Disney Channel movies, playing "House" and pretending I have a job, sledding, snowmen, staying after school, drawing, painting, swinging, my turn on the video game but forreal this time, sibling love—

zombie tag, freeze tag, red light green light, what time is it Mr. Fox?, Scrabble, Checkers, Old Maid, Spit, I Declare War, Connect Four, Turok, Battletoads, Kirby's Dreamland, Smash Bros, watching my brothers play video games, Animal Planet, Reading, Running, Bicycles—

hanging a sheet down the side of my bottom bunk for some semblance of privacy in my hallway/room, uninterrupted silence, Little Bill, Muppet Treasure Island, Men in Black, movie nights, the rare Chinese food order, Sloppy Joe's, Chicken Parmesan, Frozen Milk, Bubbles—

racing siblings, jump ropes, bop-it, lanyard, friendship bracelets, piles of leaves, tasting dinner, breaking fast, Graham crackers, olives, mozzarella, Root Beer Floats, new clothes, visits from Grandma and Aunt Jayne, Uncle Tom, Aunt Lynn, dancing with Zakiyah, hide and seek—

tadpoles, god I love tadpoles so fucking much. so much that they get their own tweet. in Summer I'd visit puddles in the driveway and watch them grow a little bigger every day, just watching them evolve into little frogs day by day, so beautiful and exciting. I love tadpoles.—