[Image description: a child sits surrounded by moving boxes and faces out of a vehicle window towards a building with light shining on it]
Poems and Art by Aiden Tsen
The Move
Billowing sheets
Hiding where the scaffolding meets
The sky.
The sun stared as we said goodbye
To home, school, functioning kitchens.
The van that we got in
Took us a mere bus ride away,
Yet you for a child cannot that distance downplay.
The Return
It’s greyer than you remember.
The gate buzzes - you enter.
Now you walk down the stairs
You used to leap down through the air.
In that grass you used to play
Until the end of the day.
What used to stretch on for miles
In reality was only leaves, a pile.
You used to climb that tree
And call your Mom to see
How brave you are, how bold.
You see now there’s only one foothold.
This was a mistake -
Your memories feel fake.
Those hopes to return to a simpler time
You see would now just be a lie.