I miss those frivolous carefree days

Before life and responsibility snuck up

When stressed was merely desserts spelled backwards

Mmmm…. desserts like cheesecake with strawberries

The days before bills and working 9-5

Or rather 8-6 or 7 somedays…

Before demanding alarm clocks with their teeth grinding buzz

With days of time lines and dead lines

I miss days of drawing lines in the sand

This is where you can play, this is my spot

And don’t you dare cross that line

Or you’ll be fired?

Will I at least get severance or pay in leiu?

New lines…the unemployment lines

But instead of enjoying the free time to play

There’s resumes to write, applications to fill out

When days of building forts and snowmen and having snowball fights

Are replaced with writing essays and exams and having relationship fights

It’s all just the precursor to endless meetings and status reports and dealings with HR

Somehow hair bows and dolls

Become dress suits and laptops

It almost seems overnight

When really it’s not,

it’s just your perception of time changing as you get older, you get reassured

But somehow, that’s not reassurance at all

Your life seems to be picking up momentum

Days becoming weeks becoming months, years

And you just want it all to stop

Just take a break for a moment

While you savour that cheesecake….with strawberries