(Inspired by Day6's song 'Wanna Go Back')

Trigger Warning: Suicide attempt and death are mentioned in paragraph 2.

He wants to go back, to a simpler time, where he didn't have to worry about things like taxes or if he'd be able to buy food later. He hated it, he hated that he grew up. He grew up against his will. If he had the choice, he would have stayed a child. He faintly remembered what it was like, to be a child. He remembered playing on the swings with a couple of his many friends as he was a social child. He was friends with almost everyone. He brought people together, he was the most liked person in his year. Everyone knew him as the child who could do no wrong. The teachers all doted on him and his work. He was the ideal student. His brain made people want to learn from him. His innocence made all his teachers and adults around him reminisce, about their own childhood and then they'd comment at how the future is going to kill his innocence.

He wanted the version of him back that didn't know about death and the pain of having someone close to you die. He didn't want to know about how one of his dearest friends of many years would die by suicide when they were 20. He never wanted to learn that his excellent parents would go in a hit and run and he'd have to act mature and look after his younger siblings. He didn't want it. He hated it. He hated it with a fiery passion which could make Satan frightened. He yearned to go back to a more simplistic time.

When the bell rung, at primary school, it meant the end of another day of learning easy mathematics or art. At secondary school, it meant the start of another hour progressing to adulthood, where you learn to become an adult without learning how to pay taxes, how to save money well or anything that an adult needs to learn or do. Instead, you learn about an old man's theorem and how many numbers there are in pi. You learn material that is pointless and useless in adult life, some things are helpful, but 90% of what you learn is futile and not worth your time learning. You waste so many hours of your life in secondary school. None of which you can earn back, they're gone forever.

In the blink of an eye, he was an adult. Life's colour began to fade. Everything which was once so colourful became dull and monotoned. His friends had no time to meet up with him, he became lonely as his friends got on with their lives, forgetting about him slowly. He expected it. But not that quickly. The smile that once was always on his face was now a rarity for even his siblings to see. His smile spread happiness to people. They saw, first hand, how adulthood ruined him. That made them not want to grow up but, they knew, that they'd have to. No matter what, they'd have to become adults like their older brother and hopefully not get crushed and broken like him.

When he was home alone, both his siblings were at their friends' homes for the weekend, he recollected what he was like when his teacher or parent would question him about what he aspired to be. He'd say an astronaut or a forensic scientist, something bold and seemingly unachievable. Back then, when he was young, it was acceptable to be imaginative. You wanted to be anything and everything. But now, when he's an average adult working in a full-time office job, imagination is pointless. His dreams were crushed by the thing called reality, and it was never coming back.

A picture on his bedside table stood, him and his family before their parents died. How his grin was so broad, naive to the harsh reality of life. How fortunate of a child he was, how happy they were. Together. How he used to think that'd last forever. That his parents would be there until his own death, innocent to the fact that they could die while he was at school. How childish of him to think that.

He remembered all the times he would fall asleep on the couch or in his seat at school, he could do it for extended periods and now? He couldn't even lay on the sofa easily without his back hurting. When he was younger, he could fall asleep at the table, and when he woke up, it'd be the next morning and in his bed. Now as an adult, when he wakes up after hurting his back by sleeping on the couch, he'd wake up late for work and still, like the night before, on the couch.

As a kid, you're told to eat your vegetables, to be big and strong and if you don't then, no tv or no games and, as you spent your time playing games or in front of the tv, you'd eat your vegetables, but as an adult, you have no one to tell you what to eat. You'd have the schedule as a kid, which would be enforced by your parents and as an adult, you can basically do whatever you want, but you know that you'll have no one to tell you off and make sure that you keep eating healthily. How he longed to have that sense of stability in his life again.

Birthdays. The one day that is special to you, and the one day that reminds you about how you're getting closer, and closer to the inevitable end called death. As a kid, birthdays are celebrated much differently than as an adult. When you're young, you'll ask for games, toys and sweets, all things that are important to you, as a child. You would take in sweets to give to your class. You'd complain that you shouldn't be bringing sweets and how it should be the other way around.

As an adult, you'd ask for necessities and things that aren't expensive, as a new tv or game console, as you have more important things that you need. You treat yourself on your birthday as an adult because you deserve a break. You'd most likely spend your birthday alone if your friends are all busy and your family are living their own lives, you'd get a text or a video saying "Happy birthday! Hope you have a wonderful day," when in fact, you're spending your birthday alone, in your room with no one except yourself. How he wished to have the simplicity that he called childhood back. How he wishes he could snap his fingers and revert back to being a young child, having everything he'd ever wanted and needed; his family and friends. How he wished he could turn back time to the good old days.