Unfamiliar places

I’d  been here before; I knew I had. There were faint memories that glowed through the corridors, full of colour that seemed distant and otherworldly, like they belonged to a stranger. The placid halls would bubble with childish laughter which brought life to the dreary classrooms. Time would slip by without any notice, a creature awaiting in the shadows preparing to pounce. Now the silence was unbearable. Time was frozen.

Faces danced through my mind, taunts of a life I would never experience again, faces of youth and innocence. They were bright and alive but brought only the knowledge that they’d grow forever dimmer until one day they would fade into the pool of maturity – destined to bring only longing for a lost childhood.

This place was different. A carcass of the land I’d once known as home. How I’d wish  to leave, to be free of those imprisoning gates. Now I long to turn back the clock, ache for just a few more precious moments of carefree banter that had been robbed from me, for just a few reprieving moments from the looming  pressure of growing up.

Where’d all the time go?

I’d been here before, but now it was foreign. It was no longer the great iron gates keeping me prisoner, but the shackles of expectations that I’d been caught in. This time there would be no escape from my new jail cell.