Childhood isn’t an age group
It’s not just a label for a category
For little people who haven’t ‘grown up’ yet.

It’s a mentality,
A way of thinking.
It’s not simplistic,
But it is simple.

To be a child is to be free
From restricting self-consciousness
From wearying worries
From burdening responsibility
From complex analysis
From smearing prejudice and crippling bias

It is to have clear eyes and
Tongue unfettered from politically correcting restraint
Free to say what is and what isn’t
Without a second thought
Or careful pre-arrangement.

To be a child is to be vulnerable
To stronger, bigger, ’smarter’ people
To beliefs that might fail you;
It is to have misplaced trust in the seemingly perfect.

The faith of a child may be looked down upon
Brushed aside, even ridiculed.
And yet in this faith may be truth
And Freedom.

A child can look up and see the clouds
And fly through them.
The adult is stuck on the ground
Preoccupied by the weather and the time of day.