i am just a child
in a world full of adults

All hell breaks loose—
on this day
children wear hideous masks
to hide
their innocent faces

All hell breaks loose—
every day
adults wear innocent masks
to hide
their hideous faces

Here is to every child that didn’t get to experience childhood.
Who had to be a grown up.
Who had to lift themselves up.
Who had to hold themselves up.
Who kept up with the beating up.

Death wasn’t supposed to be our first word.
These are not the games we wanted to play.
We didn’t imagine our first heartbreak will be at this young age.
The only love we knew was pain and cruelty.
Peace is not a word in our dictionary.

So please, excuse the way we act,
don’t freak out when we push you away;
we are not familiar with attention and consideration.

We went from “who loves orange soda?” to take a shot for me.
To waiting in lines at the DMV, from waiting in lines at the school dance like “bruh hold my spot for me”
From N64 controllers to leasing a Toyota Corolla
Dealing with these adult life problems we don’t have no control of

From pillow forts to the rents due
From action figures to hopes of six figures
From razor scooters to shaving with razors
From love letters to car notes
crazy right?

The only losses we worried about were argued through Rock Paper Scissors.
Now we worry about losing jobs, material things and on the news daily we lose our brothers and sisters.

The only pain we felt was scraping our knees on the concrete.
Now we scrape change tryna pay the bills hoping that our ends meet.
I wish I could go back, I close my eyez with my memories and feel gratification.
And the thing I miss most of all at that tender age is my imagination

I can’t believe I couldn’t wait to get big