Once when I was young,* I was told you could swing so high you'd be able to just *fly away.
I learned early on
That not everything we're told is true
The fantastical can sometimes amount to a pile of plastic bags scattered in the wind
The end isn't always happy and there's not always closure
Punctuations are more often question marks than definitive periods
And looking for a definite explanation took prevalence over allowing our imaginations to fill in the blanks.
Play time was replaced with study time,
And before we knew it, it was time for work
We strayed from the playgrounds of our youth,
Never returning to the top of the slide, we'd hit the ground a bit too hard to keep the enchantment of seemingly endless possibilities going
Carriages became pumpkins long before midnight,
And the school bell rang before we could finish our fun
But to tell the truth, sometimes,
When everyone else has gone inside, back to the real world, full of logic and banalities,
I sit on the old swingset kicking my feet
Hoping it will let me *soar