The Clock of Childhood

When you were 
younger you would 
beg and scream to stay up 
playing in the light of the moon,
protecting your childhood from
slipping away into the embers. 
I should have listened to my parents when they told me to stop growing. 
Every inch taller I get,
the farther I grow from my childhood. 
I wish the clock paused –
when the expectation of the world 
did not come crashing down – 
the few years
where we did not have to worry about the future, 
not even knowing a different future existed. 
Now we're tossing and turning like how butter is made.
As days go on, 
my eyes feel like they are carrying pounds
of the sweet sensation of sugar,
though this time, the sugar is sour, and the cream that the butter was made from is spoiled. 
My thoughts collide with those I wish came to my mind in the day, 
when the sun was out to whisper to me that I had nothing to worry about. 
The sun doesn't know my life, it only knows how I am in the light. 
That's the only time it is out to see me play in the delicate flowers
that are trampled in the night.