washing line

She walked out to the garden, washing basket on the hip, covering the blaring sun from her eyes as she hummed under her breath. 

As she hung the now pristine white sheets up on the line, she let her thoughts dry with the wind as well. She let them stand still with time and just for a minute forget it all. Instead she thought about the carelessness that came with childhood. That feeling where nothing was thought through and it was all completely acceptable. 

The thought made the corner of her lips turn up, a glimmer of a smile she'd almost forgotten how to make. The games played in the mud, crawling under the house, running through the fields. The way she tried to do triple somersaults in the pool, how after the beach there always seemed to be a sandcastle of sand hiding in her hair, and how she used to climb mountains of mulch as if they were her kingdom. The friendships that she proclaimed would last forever, and truly thought would. The primary school crushes that were given code names and notes passed in class between best friends. The way she'd dream of being a new type of adult every week, as if her future was a Barbie doll whose outfits she could easily change. 

Her heart longed for that frivolity, the feelings that felt like so much and so little all packaged in an innocent little heart. It was only a reach away but sometimes even that felt hard, like the years had make her arms feel heavier – it felt harder to move without thinking, without feeling. 

She closed her eyes, letting the cool air hit her cheeks and her sighs be carried away. The questions were never-ending, the unknown forever impending. I guess the great thing about being young is you're gifted with the bliss of ignorance, you don't realise, you don't worry, you don't care. 

- O