They Too Were Children

They didn’t begin with masks.

They borrowed them

from faces that flinched,

tones that froze,

rules

never spoken.

Watched.

Learned.

Survived

by becoming

what was safe to be.

Every room

had a different version

of love.

One required silence.

One, a perfect answer.

Another cracked under laughter.

They adjusted

before they knew

they were adjusting.

Adaptation was never an ambition.

Only a brilliant instinct.

Praise taught shape.

Fear carved the rest.

Even the softest ones

can vanish

when the fire is constant.

Time passed.

The shape held.

Eventually, no one questioned

who they became

not even them.

What once was survival

became

personality.

Identity.

And it worked.

Until it didn’t.

The mirror begins to itch.

Something cracks.

A hunger they can’t recognize.

A gentleness they forgot.

They begin to peel to breathe.

Not all who wound meant to.

Some were still children

wearing grown bodies,

still bargaining for love

in a language they never chose.

This is not a permission slip.

This is a hologram

layered over time,

seen only

when the light bends

just right.