• Maybe we could all climb the same ladder if our bodies didn't hurt. Then we would be able to lay down comfortably on the fresh lawn, letting the earth slip through our fingers as if it were ours alone. Because we were free. We would now be able to believe that war was bad and that having children before you were married said a lot about your parents. But we never said those things.Not when we were still so young. Not when all the answers that came out of our mouths were wrong. But it's okay, nobody loved us that much anyway. We would both hold our own hands in the dark and pray hard enough to find an opening. When we did, we would be ready to begin our lives almost always the wrong way, because life was like a loaded gun. It was safe enough to press one against our necks and pull the trigger.