by Brad Ayerst
We played every day like nothing else matters on earth.
The air filled with sounds of excitement and mirth.
Such simple days were those times of youth.
Giving account of what you found under your pillow after losing your tooth.
If you had no bike you would wait your turn.
Until your mate gave you the handle bars, you rode so hard your legs burned.
You drank water straight from the tap while washing sand from your face.
Periodic food used to appear from a quick visit at home in your hand.
Sharing crusts of bread with your mates or half eaten biscuits.
Anything to keep the momentum going to make sure not one minute is missed.
Baseball played with a broken broomstick , soccer played with a half deflated ball , our energy was boundless and kept us forever in motion.
Shouting “car!” to instantly stop a game, the goal posts moved and then put back in place once it was safe again.
Broken window panes and trespassing to retrieve a ball from the most feared neighbors yard.
Scraping your knees on the tar, falling off of the bike or crashing to the sidewalk on your roller skates.
Ours was true emotion, disagreements instantly made known, hand shaking to introduce a truce only moments later broken as “bad loser!” was called.
Out of the blue a parents voice broke through the air, hearing a name called and friends confirming whos being called to their home.
A secret crush that stays on the last house on the road..
Feelings of flushed cheeks and an unexplained raw feelings flooding your chest and your brain..
OH childhood! why did you pass? Making all we knew then look like a farce.
When we were kids, when the streetlights came on, it meant we went home to a hot meal and bed.
Now when the streetlights come on we lock our doors and windows to feel safe as we harbour fear and dread.
So much has changed, no clock can be turned back to revert our lives to what they once were and our children’s children will never play as we once did.
Its a time in space and soon a forgotten era , where even an AI image cant replicate the true picture.
I yearn to cry for a scraped knee instead of crying for those missing that are left only in framed photos..
I feel its worth our while to hang onto every feeling you can remember, of REAL living as you start greying into a life of cynicism and dull.
Therefore keep a childlike ounce of light in your heart my friends, a little piece of a feeling of freedom mixed with true unbridled fun with no obscurity.
It might be the only way to keep the hounds of terminal thoughts at bay that parade as forced maturity.