The streets used to be wider. I swear that they did. I know I was a kid, but they used to be thick. They used to have girth, a sidewalk as wide as the Earth. My memory is sketchy, but surely they were wide. You could fit neatly inside, tucked away like a bird safe in a nest. So where is the rest? When'd they get thin, lose all their width? Or was it always like this?
The trees used to be taller. Reaching for the moon, their leaves falling soon, it's early September, this is how I remember. Spilling onto the pavement, these yellows and reds, like someone colored the sidewalk while we slept in our beds. Like a volcano erupting, disrupting the mainland, they'll wash away in the rain and leave behind streaks of beauty for us to recall. I thought there was more, but was this all?
The hallways used to be longer. They used to have an endless row of door after door set snug between a narrow floor. A warm light overhead guided us down to more, seemingly never ending, an eternally descending corridor. They used to be longer, of this I am sure. The scope, an improbable length. That was its greatest strength, that it stretched onward, indefinite. I used to be scared of how long they would be, and now I can see, that perception was me. But I swear, they used to be longer.
The world used to be bigger. Now it feels so small. What happened to it all? Where is the expansive planet that once was? What happened, because it used to be bigger. There used to be more. The sky seemed taller, of this I am sure. Where once you couldn't fathom the length between states, now the length between rooms seems far too great. Where once an hour felt like a year, now fifteen minutes feel like they're never here. The world used to be bigger. I am not lying. But I think perhaps my innocence is dying.
Did I get bigger or did it all just get small? Or was this the size it was all along? Was I incapable of seeing it for what it was, preconception so skewed and all because everything seems larger when you are little. The world feels so big, your life not as brittle. The hallways, the trees, the sidewalks were massive, but was it because interaction was passive. Now I am here, now I'm fully awares. And everything's small.
And nobody cares.
Perhaps not my best work, but it was half finished when I decided to put it up here and complete it. Either way, not terrible, but nothing spectacular either by any means.
