I entered our old childhood home,
Where my siblings and I had lived for so long.
I bent my head as I stepped through the front door,
Which towered over me when I was a boy.
When we were callow young fellows,
Our house was a mansion in the clouds—
Sunlit, spacious rooms
That echoed our laughter.
The roof hung so high.
I thought it reached the sky.
But as our skinny legs grew longer
And our tiny feet outgrew our shoes,
Our house shrank like a deflating balloon.
I think,
Someone must have cast a spell.
I stopped near my parents’ room,
Where I was once caught vandalising the walls.
I heard through the curtain my parents talk:
“When we were younger,
Wasn’t this house much smaller?
We barely had space to move around.
The family outnumbered the rooms.
We were at our kids’ beck and call.
Our ears rang with their brawl.
We often tripped in the kitchen,
Trying not to trample their feet small.
But all of a sudden, the house seems too big.
The stairs miss their race;
It seems there’s too much space.
I think,
Someone must have cast a spell.”