Where have the babies gone—
the fat-cheeked ones with wide eyes,
sticky fists clutching bits of sky,
where did they go,
those wild little kings,
with no shame in their bellies,
no clocks in their heads?

Did they fall somewhere
between unpaid rent
and half-empty bars,
lose themselves in offices
stacked with paper and regret,
forgetting how to howl
at the night?

I remember them,
barefoot prophets,
laughing at the madness
we now choke on.
I see them—
in flashes between smokes
and the clang of passing trains,
ghosts with soft curls
and toothless grins
lost in the grit of morning.

Where have the babies gone?
Did we drink them down
with cheap wine,
swallow their dreams whole
in silence and debt,
while they slipped
through cracks
we didn’t bother to fill?

Some nights
I hear their cries—
not loud,
not pleading,
but faint as the wind
through the tired streets.
They never went anywhere.
It was us.
We forgot
how to be them.