When did you realize things weren't as they were?
How days seem shorter now, and aren't as before?

A part of you screams from the banks of dreams,
Streams of thread to life forgot - upon the brim, they leak.

Piece by piece, you think back when,
To better times - when you were asleep.
When days were longer - and the skies were bluer,
Your words were little, and lies were truer.

A space between then and now,
Follows you like a floorboard creak.
Up the stairs and down the hall -
With every step, they keep,

That all the while childhood was all you really had,
To yourself, because right now,
The world of you, demands.

Shadows of you growing up pursue you through it all,
Giving shape to childhood, dancing on the walls.

You close and lock the door behind you -
And peak through the blinds,
Crack the window to the faintest peep of baby birds up in the pines.

You sit in silence and let it crash upon you like a wave,
Rowing through the lake of no longer - before you're to awake.

A cul-de-sac lies quiet on a sunny afternoon,
Down the block - you walk in thought,
Just you and the daymoon.
Perched half hidden, high above you -
Daydreaming with you - or of you.

You're met by the end, and the remains of a stage floor,
Chipped paint flakes on the railing up the way.
In the dust, so untouched, lay the footprints on the stage,
Whatever the play was - I cannot say,
Frozen in time - the last act with no name.

You draw back the double layered curtains,
Never opened - in the theater of your mind.
You breathe it in - the scene, left behind,

The scent of salty sea - the backdrop of this dream,
Giving way to an abandon shore of white sands littered with debris.
You leap off the stage so effortlessly,
And onto the beach - stroll endlessly.

Picking up shells - building up unfinished sand castles,
Skipping pebbles across the waters -
Separating you from other worlds.
Digging through old mines you've dug -
Revisiting old dreams you've loved,

In dream states, you built yourself,
That turned to shadows while growing up.
For your childhood to come be free,
That follow you like a floorboard creak.