I’m right over there. I can see me from here.

I crouch halfway up our ivory-woven-carpet coated staircase. The steps and I are flush to the living room. My five-year-old fingers squeeze the wooden banister, head tilts at the same angle as the oak. I squint: through slits I peer for my phantom. I am not searching for an imaginary friend, I don’t have one. I search for a stairway, though not the one I stand on.

Many times, I dream of steps that rise and are penned by air; of a hanged labyrinth that winds above the coffee table. I dream of an elegant path-to-up, crippled with rickets and reprise. I never climb them, though I want to.

I only stare from my perch on this staircase, the one that exists in my daytime world. In my waking hours I am still in this spot, pinching my eyes tiny and looking for the maze of steps, convinced they exist and that if I look hard enough, I’ll see them.