Childhood Dreams

 
Your refection frightens me, where are you, childhood?
I search empty rooms, gazing at the written on a wall:
Don’t forget I’m still a child, still afraid of the dark.

Words paralyze me, running away from childhood,
only to return to it inside my mind, searching over 
and over after parents have left, little affection left.

Darkness covers me while integrity reintegrates 
a desire to play where it is forbidden, old pirates, 
mirrors, merry-go-rounds, where are you, childhood? 

I’m jumping rope with a glittering necklace until
mishaps create a shadow of myself, perpetuating
a ritualistic adulthood, bead by bead, illuminated.

Mirroring childhood, dancing to rescued pieces 
of myself before death, so when the ringmaster
comes you’ll be able to say: Not me, I’m still 
merry-go-rounding, can’t rob me of my childhood.