Revisiting the small things
that built a future of big things
is a troubling feat.

How do you take back a childhood,
even for a moment,
that has been thwarted,
put in a back pocket,
left for bigger things?

All that’s left could be
a rusted faucet
dripping into the dark:

Nothing spectacular-
nothing ornamented
with childhood hand-washing
and teeth-brushing objections:

Just a rusted faucet
drip, drip, dripping
into an empty sink
with no one around to hear it.

If there’s no one in the forest to hear the tree,
it still falls;

it certainly lands
with an echoing
thud;

and an old childhood faucet
will drip, drip drip,
into the dark.

After all,
it’s just a tree.
Why should it matter?

And after all,
it’s just an old faucet,
one of the many assets
in the background of a childhood
left to drip, drip,
drip into the dark.

But still,
we remember its insignificance 
every now and again:

Its swoosh,
its cold, metallic touch,
its squeeky hinges and its “late-night
hairbrush karaoke”
imitation-marble surface.

These small gifts of memory
arise at the most peculilar times,
long after the chill of the faucet
has left our no-longer-childlike-hands.
The memories are sporadic,
timidly fleeting,
and they pass by,
giving way to bigger things:

bigger faucets and
bigger dreams
than late-night hairbrush karaoke.

Yet we still wonder if the tree,
left to a barren forest
that had once thrived with life
ever even meant a thing
when its landing was not heard.

The tree still existed
and the faucet still dripped,
even after
their relevance had passed:

they still fell,
they still dripped,
with echoing thuds
and haunting significance.