it's 2012. i'm nine years old. my sisters are six and four. we're sitting on the rug in front of the tv playing mario kart, bickering amongst each other over nothing of importance. mommy and daddy are somewhere in the house; they're still in love. my sisters don't know heartbreak yet. i don't either, really. they're so young they only cry when they're hurt. we haven't walked inside to find all our furniture gone and our mother moved out. that's 2013. for now we're all still so young, still happy, still innocent.
when 2013 does roll around, and our lives are uprooted completely, my sisters are the only people in the world that i love. we're now ten, seven, and five. i feel a newfound sense of responsibility to protect them in a way that our parents have failed to. i feel so old. i feel so hardened by the cards dealt to me.

i miss when my baby sisters were still babies. i miss when our only worries were beating each other in mario kart.