I Was a Child, Once...

I was a child, once.

I ran without fear of falling, convinced that if my steps were long enough and my faith strong enough I might take flight.

I laughed without fear of judgment, knowing that my youth lent me infallibility.

I cried without restrain, the armor that would hold my emotions thin and malleable.

I invented worlds that could never be, and for every question I created an answer, needing no more plausibility than the limits of my own mind.

I lay my head on the pillow with grass between my toes and the taste of fresh air still in my mouth. My eyes would close before the sun fully set.

When I awoke trembling in the night, my mother would lie beside me and all would be well.

Now.

Now I walk quickly, for if I run I might stumble.

I laugh only when prudence allows me to do so, for I know that my fallibility is endless.

My tears are restrained even further: bursting through the chinks of a nearly impenetrable armor only when no one is there to bear witness.

Invented worlds require laws and boundaries: even those defined by magic.

When I lay my head to sleep at night it is with my feet freshly scrubbed and the taste of hours long past midnight in my mouth.

When I awake trembling in the night, no one comes to lie beside me. A tattered relic, with its stuffing gone and nose ripped off, is all that is there to hold me. Arms squeeze it tight, and I pretend that all is well.

I was a child, once.

Now I must walk among the depressed, decrepit, and diseased. Good morning, adulthood.