I asked my younger self if he still wanted to grow up.
He stared at my tired eyes and quietly changed the subject.
“Do we still laugh so hard we can’t breathe?” he asked.
I told him, “Only when we’re pretending not to break.”
“Did we keep all our friends from school?”
I said, “Most people become memories before they become strangers.”
“Do mom and dad still call us their little boy?”
I paused so long the room began to ache.
“Do we still cry when things hurt?” he whispered.
I said, “No… now we apologize for having feelings.”
“Did we become everything we dreamed about?”
His voice sounded like bicycles and summer evenings.
I looked at him the way abandoned houses look at storms
and said, “We became someone who survives the dream instead.”