She stood at the ironing board,
pressing the wrinkles from our lives
creases smoothed, lines made clean—
while I stood there, five years old,
full of questions too big for my mouth.
Fairness mattered most to me then.
With two little brothers,
it had become a daily obsession,
a moral battlefield where I kept score.
I had a theory—
the only way God could make it fair.
What if, I began,
my voice small but urgent,
you weren’t always you,
and I wasn’t always me?
What if we’re all switching bodies,
all the time?
Like—if you spank me,
the very next second,
I become you,
and you become me.
So, when you hurt me,
you’d feel it not me.
And maybe it wasn’t even me
who just said that—
maybe it was you,
being me,
for a minute.
She didn’t look up.
The iron hissed against Daddy’s shirt
as she pressed the right sleeve flat,
rooted in herself—
for that moment, at least—
confident in who she was.
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