poetry ☆

People often forget episodes before the age of 5,

left to remember through stories, videos, and scrapbooks.

I grieve a time I can barely remember.

Fleeting moments with barriers placed on them,

I’m forced to forget what being a kid felt like.

Young minds today survive off their own imaginations,

creating direct paths they walk to reach their dreams.

It seems so simple with support holding your hands as you cross the street.

Feeling secure enough to swing higher with guided hands pushing you up.

At such a young age it feels like you can do anything.

I am a lot older now, and I can’t remember the last time my dreams felt big.

When anxiety didn’t paralyze my body,

keeping me stagnant but also propelling me forward.

I wish I could go back,

undo every reason that forced me to grow up too fast.

Childhood is only tangible.

Staring at a little girl through old video tapes and photos wishing I knew what she was like.

Hearing stories of how fearless she was.

I only have a mirror to stare at now,

and instead of looking at her with hope,

I wish she was so much more.

That she aimed for the sky more often.

Being a kid has a strict timeline.

At a certain age you’re met with realities that haunt your dreams.

At a certain age you still look both ways before you cross the street but you're reminded there's

no one beside you holding your hand.

At a certain age you stopped trying to swing so high to prevent being forced to come down.

I am at the certain age,

grieving a time where my imagination was the only thing in control,

still yet to find out that dreaming big was for kids only.

KIDS ONLY - Sofia Dominguez