𝐦𝐨𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐞

xiv

it's so strange how things can change so much, yet at the same time remain the same.

there are times where i spontaneously long for a glimpse of my childhood. so i will wander around the property in which i have lived my entire life, attempting to find familiarities from my past.

i do the things that i would as a child; balancing on the rotting eucalyptus logs strewn across the earth, identifying plants and rocks that have been in the same position my entire life. closing my eyes and searching through my fried brain for a memory of myself in the exact spot long ago.

and within this i understand truly how much i have grown. how different my mindset is to that of my childlike innocence. i sit down on the dusty earth and wonder what thoughts once consumed my mind. what aspirations i had for the future, and where exactly i thought i would be now.

i think perhaps my younger self would be disappointed to find that teenage angst, and humanity more than anything is bleaker than i could have imagined

i take notice that when i dig my toes into the warm, dry ground that the feeling remains the same as when i would do this a s a child. i suppose for some reason i assumed it may be different. everything is the same.

but it also is not.

i realise it's me that is the only difference. i am no longer small enough to hide in small spaces for the thrill of independence , no longer happy enough to want to. no longer innocent to the inner workings of mankind. nor to the inequality and hatred that seeps from our greedy mouths.

i now hesitate at the door of that room because i'm finally able to understand the games my friend wanted to play were not games. and those experiences were not that of a normal 6 year old girl. i realise that small parts of your childhood and repressed conscious can have an effect on you for the rest of your mortal life.

i now search for the details i see everywhere: the band posters and the rusted railways signs, the trinkets and the lost mementos. ever seeking the freedom and ignorance that followed childhood.