The Gap Between Us

I watch them from the benches, from the corners of streets,

From the quiet hum of the cafe,

Their small bodies moving in ways adults have long forgotten.

A pole is not a pole; it is a spinning tower, a rope to climb, a boundary to cross in a thousand new ways.

A patch of sunlight on the sidewalk is a stage, a target, a warmth to roll in,

And the cracks between tiles are bridges, rivers, lava flows to leap over with exaggerated caution and impossible skill.

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Adults move like shadows of themselves.

Feet forward, arms barely swinging, eyes downcast or glazed,

Their motion functional, predetermined, boxed into routines.

They step over cracks, dodge puddles with careful precision,

A pole is only a pole, a street sign is nothing more,

The world flattened, its edges dulled, its possibilities measured.

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The kids see a world alive.

A pattern on the ground is a game: skip one, hop three, spin, slide, fall into laughter.

A stranger’s hat is a crown to admire, a bug on the path is a discovery, a lecture in miniature.

A puddle becomes a mirror, a moat, a drum, a source of infinite squeals and delighted jumps.

If a cloud drifts overhead, they tilt their heads,

They trace its edges with fingers as if trying to catch it,

Ask aloud what it is, what it could be, why it floats.

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Their emotions are landscapes we have forgotten to traverse.

Tears arrive unannounced, laughter bursts without permission,

A scrape on the knee is a tragedy, a butterfly landing is an epiphany.

Every sensation is amplified, every sound a note in a symphony no adult remembers hearing.

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I watch them inside.

They can’t sit still: they spin on railings, slide down bannisters, vault over furniture,

Drag books across the floor, rearrange chairs, dance into walls, just to test the bounce.

Adults are pressed into chairs, slouched, tired, afraid of space,

Afraid of noise, afraid of movement.

Where a child leaps, an adult steps; where a child yells in joy, an adult whispers in restraint;

Where a child climbs a tree, an adult looks at the tree and sighs.

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A stick is a wand, a sword, a violin bow, a measuring rod, a drawing pen in their mind.

A leaf is a vehicle, a paper, a hat, a friend.

A bug is a creature with a story, a question, a name.

A patch of mud is a kitchen, a laboratory, a playground, a sculpture.

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Adults would be deemed insane for the same exuberance.

To walk barefoot down a public street because the stones feel funny,

To chase the wind across the park,

To kneel in front of a drain and wonder what lives inside,

To spin until the world blurs and laugh into dizziness,

We would be stared at, whispered about, labeled “weirdo,”

A danger to decorum, a mental instability in broad daylight.

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And yet that spark, that constant, insatiable curiosity,

That joy in motion and sensation, in discovery, in being fully present,

It exists somewhere inside us, buried under schedules, under shame, under the weight of “grown-up life.”

If we could reclaim even a fraction of it,

If we could let our eyes widen, our arms stretch, our bodies move for no reason other than delight,

The world would become impossible, dazzling, chaotic, full of infinite possibilities again.

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But the adults around me, I watch them; they shuffle past,

The poles unspun, the patterns unchallenged, the clouds unquestioned.

They are efficient, safe, correct, measured, tired.

They have lost the spark,

Or they buried it deep so that the world no longer dares them to play, to touch, to ask, to leap.

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I sit and observe.

I take notes, I remember, I mourn quietly,

And sometimes I try, for a moment, to hop over a crack, to twirl in a doorway,

And instantly, I feel the sharp sting of judgment from every adult eye:

Mad, reckless, unnecessary, unstable.

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I keep circling back to the same questions:

At what point did joy move from our limbs to our longing?

When did the world stop being something to climb,

And love started being the thing we chase instead?

Maybe the spark didn’t die,

It simply migrated into sharper thrills;

Sex, alcohol, drugs, hobbies, obsession, material gain,

to feel connected in ways we only learn as adults.

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And so we sit,

While children whirl past us, inventing worlds from air and stone,

And we smile quietly,

Jealous, wistful, aware,

Knowing that to live like them would be glorious,

And yet, socially fatal.