The Streets of Childhood

How perception changes as we mature...

The streets I trod

As an innocent and naive child

Appeared as gold-paved and rosy-hued

And the brilliant light of optimism

Shone on all and everything,

Banishing worrisome dark shadows.

Only now as an adult,

Weary with experience

Does walking those same streets

Reveal their true character.

　

There are cracks in the pavements

And weeds line the kerbs.

The house windows seem malevolent

Like the eyes of a beast

Indigenous to the Concrete Jungle,

Waiting to pounce and devour

My childhood hopes and dreams.

Shadows are dark and mysterious

Filled with secret snickering and threat

Of unnameable hurt and pain.

　

The streets of my childhood

Are hardly changed in all the years

I have been maturing into adulthood.

I have changed and found perception.

How I wish to be a child again

And escape this cruel reality:

Rediscover the age of innocence

That once protected me from life.