i don't remember sucking my thumb. i don't remember how old i was when sucking my thumb no longer seemed a necessary component of my sense of security, or whyever it is people suck their thumbs for some length of time after they're born. i don't remember why i sucked my thumb and i don't remember doing it.

i can't tell you exactly why i started again today. i woke up from the nap that supplanted my 2:30 english class (the one about fairy tales) and there i was in the fetal position, sucking my thumb. there has been too much reality in both my waking and dreaming lives lately, and reality seems to be a thing harder and harder to sidestep the longer i'm out of my father's house, town, paradigm. it's more vivid in all its details; the skies are bluer and the oversexed old men are more viscious in their buzzardly attacks on my three a.m. self in my coffee-and-homework haunts downtown.

the main headline of the bellingham herald today announces:

"your children are Not Safe anywhere at any time."

somehow, i found an artifact from the prehistory of my prememory this afternoon, feeling how perfectly the curve of my thumb fits the roof of my mouth.