The Pretending Garden

When we came back, we were giants.

At school we would boast of our enourmous garden,

back home.

Our jungle, our wildrenesss, all ours -

All mine. To touch and drink

Great gulps of air. Tasting of all the colours of all the flowers that grew there.

We used to play at life. Dragging out

all the duvets in the house

out the back door

and make beds under the trees and pretend to sleep.

For what felt like hours, was minutes.

Childhoods easy crawl,

till one day we are running.

Running for our lives.

And when we came back, it was a dolls house.

We were all too big; trespassers in a place we used to posses,

We felt older.

Ancient. Overgrown.

The colours were there, but the flowers were

dead, and the air tasted rusty

and it was hard

to breathe.

The duvets were strewn

on the grass, under

the trees.

And we were still there, pretending

to be asleep.