growing up

Maybe deep down I'm still a little kid, and everything from childhood up till now has just been a slow process of learning to cover that little kid up with a thousand pretenses. You could think of it as changing over time, because kids are fragile things, so easily hurt, so easily discouraged, so quick to cry, as quick to forgive, and no one could survive long like that. But maybe that's all rubbish, and somewhere underneath all the scar tissue you're still there, like you were a decade ago, two decades ago, or more.

I think this only because the few times I have truly loved someone else, I loved that person like a little kid would. And when I was around that person I felt something deep inside me give way, and there he was, that little kid, smiling like he'd never been hurt in his life, so full of trust and joy, so eager and carefree, like tomorrow didn't matter because it would never come or already had.