A kisfiú

At the end of the yard stood a rusty swing,

The boy sat on it, with pebbles and ink in his pocket,

He believed that everyone spoke the way they truly felt,

That anyone who smiled could never poison someone else.

The sky was as blue as paint in a storybook,

And the world was only a game — at least that’s how he and his brother saw it.

But at night the voices seeped through the walls,

A different reality was built from quiet arguments.

The boy just listened in the silence behind the door,

And suddenly, something inside him broke.

At school he saw that grown-ups cheat,

And applause belongs to the loudest voice.

He realized kind words often hide calculation,

And somehow the honest man always loses.

He learned that money can matter more than the heart,

And those who stay sincere are the first to fall.

He no longer looked only at the clouds in the sky,

But at the faces of adults in the dark shop windows too.

And he feared that one day he would become just like them,

A tired pair of eyes lying to itself.

In the park, a father shouted at his son,

In front of the store an old woman cried with her head bowed low.

War played on the evening news, while silence filled the kitchen table,

And in many places love had become nothing more than routine.

Maybe that was the first time the boy understood,

That the world was never truly black and white.

He still wanted to believe in honest words,

In the idea that people were meant for more than mere survival.

But slowly the shadow of adulthood fell across him,

And the childlike sky inside him turned dark.

Since then, he rarely runs down the street full of joy and breathless laughter.

He doesn’t ask as many questions anymore — he just watches quietly.

One afternoon he packed his toys into a box,

As if he were holding a funeral for himself.

And when his mother said, “One day you’ll grow up,”

He only answered: “I’d rather not… I don’t want to believe it.”