By CD

When I was younger,

I believed in the tooth fairy

Losing sleep

Hoping to wake up with a surprise

A reward for my loss

When I was younger, 

I believed that scratching my knees

On the concrete of the playground

Was the worst pain imaginable 

The blood dripping, staining my pure white socks

When I was younger, 

 I never understood the songs

Yet I would bob my head in the backseat

Of my mother’s black minivan

Singing the awful words with a smile

When I was younger, 

I felt on top of the world

Perched on my Dad’s shoulders

Waving at the floats

Confident that I would never ever fall 

Now that I’m older,

I understand the concept of death

That when the thing you love most

Takes its last breath of air

It isn’t just a dream

Now that I’m older,

I don’t speak with my parents much

I moved away at 18

Severing our ties with a saw

The cut so thick it could never be repaired 

Now that I’m older,

I don’t wonder where my childhood friends are

What they’ve done with their lives

What their tiny problems have become

How their faces have changed

And now that I’m older,

I wish I had appreciated

Careless, easy, simple youth

The kind that goes by so fast

And becomes nothing but a bittersweet memory.