It doesn’t feel the same,

I can’t hear kids screaming at the park across the road as they swing on the swings

or spin on the merry-go-round,

there’s no ice cream truck around,

just me and my home,

No.

This house

I grew up,

I see flaws in the world,

I don’t have the naivety anymore,

I don’t get shielded from the problems of the world anymore,

I would give everything to go back to a time where I thought the world was good.

I love this house,

the big garden,

the playroom once full of toys now turned into an office,

my bedroom that still has remnants of my childhood with posters on the wall.

I had a good childhood, I was loved, I was fed, I was happy.

I’m just grown up now.

This house is wonderful, my parents still love it but I’m not the same girl that grew up here.

I moved out, I went to University, I found a new home.

This house feels foreign to me.

The little girl who grew up here feels like a fever dream.

The key they’d given me still fit the lock but the house no longer feels like a home.