Youth, stolen.

I long to be young again,
to laugh and play my days away,
to sing and dance in the garden,
to swing and run in the park,
to snuggle and read in my bedroom,
to be happy and merry and gay.

I long to be little again,
for someone to take control,
to kiss the grazed knees better,
to wipe the mud away,
to tell me it will be okay,
to shield me from it all.

I long to be small once more,
so I could let the world pass by,
carefree and cheerfully ignorant,
untroubled and blissfully naive,
dreaming and joyfully unaware,
of the realities of life.

© Alice Daley 2014