Laughter once spilled
like sunlight through open windows,
soft and golden,
filling the hollow spaces of my chest.

The voices of youth—
giggling, unburdened—
still hum faintly through my bones,
flickering like old film reels.

Scraped knees,
mud-caked elbows,
tiny monuments to freedom.
Hair wild with wind,
skin kissed by the scent of fresh air,
the perfume of dew-drenched mornings.

I remember
dandelions clenched in small fists,
wishes whispered into seeds
and surrendered to the breeze.

Carelessness wasn’t recklessness then—
it was trust.
Safety.
A world made soft
by the certainty of love.

Imagination bloomed
without apology,
colors spilling past the lines
of every made-up story.

And always—
my mother’s hand in mine,
steady, warm,
a shield from the cold machinery
of the grown-up world.

Now—
the silence is louder.
The world, sharper.
The sky, farther away.

And I wonder,
quietly, aching:

Where did it go—
that weightless world
before the fall?