Childhood’s End

I didn’t die that day but something did.

I didn’t feel it, I didn’t see it.

But it was very real.

A few moments in silence, a touch.

And it was gone forever and I never heard it leave.

I didn’t miss it nor had any idea of its value.

You can’t miss what you didn’t know you had.

Eventually much older and wiser I noticed it was gone.

Why did it have to leave so early.

I’m left with memories of what was left in place of.

I’m left with a deep longing for a myth.

A fantasy.

A cruel glimpse of what could have been.

Maybe should have been but wasn’t.

The ghost of should that haunts adulthood.

Childhood aborted

Childhood’s end.