Oh, Puff

You never particularly liked being a child. It was such a clumsy period full of indignities and half-understood sentences.

You were a melancholy child, a serious child. I know. I was there.

But still, there are times you miss it in your bones. And once you look backward, you realize it truly was a long time ago. And far away. Remember how you made all of those promises to yourself that you wouldn't grow up. I won't you'd whisper under the covers at night with your stuffed animals. To the trees above the trail. I won't. 

But you did. You had to. And, in the end, they make you want to. You tear it all down yourself.

A dragon lives forever/
but not so little boys

You are still under there, aren't you? I can feel you sitting quietly. Whispering I'm here. I'm still here.