A little girl.  A castle in the sand.  Built and destroyed
Kicked apart
By the same tiny hands.  How many
Dreams
Will she see come and go in this way?
I wonder

I think back to all the sorrows I pierced
Myself with
Naïve and foolish hands.  Insatiable heart
Desperately
Seeking a way out.  Banging my head over and over

Against the same glass wall.  Until I was
Exhausted
Hopeless.  Occasionally flipping about like a dying
Fish
The wall was so thick.   The other side fading
Slowly

Out of sight.  And I kept kicking
Kicking
My hope waning.  My spirit starving.  Slowly
The hunger
Disappears.  Leaving only a dull ache

A subtle awareness that something is missing
Something has been lost
But we can no longer remember what it is
The emptiness
Is worse than the pain.  By far

I look into the place where the little girl's castle once
Stood
Nothing remains of it, except it's memory in my
Mind
Soon that will fade too
Leaving only infinite grains of sand - or rather
Infinite possibility

It's never too late.   I realize that now
Wisdom
Comes with time.  And refined hands
Understand the value
Of the castles they build -

And no longer destroy