We rode our bikes to your front doorstep,

a white walled bungalow.

The red sold sign was dug in your garden

and I knew that you must go.

 

One by one, they all left;

gone from ten years to beyond.

The leftovers called for fellow children,

only no one would respond.

 

Riding bikes, playing cards,

Once new streets yearn for rowdy play.

Once we grew, we left the town

and our joy there would not stay

 

The street cries with flooding drains,

discarded trash trickling down.

It cries because the youth had left

and in the storm our childhood drowned.

 

Sure, we’re still young, still not eighteen,

but we've moved on, found a new place.

After years, new children fill the block

and give the old street a new embrace.

 

And so the cycle continues in time,

For each generation it grows distrust.

And before the town can earn its name,

we grind the old street down to dust.