This is my neighborhood in the spring of 2nd grade

By Sahana Prabu

Posted on March 1, 2026

Cover Image Title: Hideout

Cover Image by: Chris L.

Classification: Photography

Specifications: Resized from 4032 X 3024 pixels

Year: 2026

Location: Ontario, Canada

This was my neighborhood 

in the spring of 2nd grade

As I remember it

You turn a corner 

You found one of the two revelations 

children drilling holes in the mud 

Coiled black snakes

And as strange as it was

I loved it 

I spent most of my time in a secret hideout I was dragged into by the children my age

It was none other than the voids between bushes

Behind

My neighbor's 

Patio in the spring

The ground in this square void was moist from rain

the emergency tap stuck to the brick wall behind the bushes

dripped permanently

I realized then that

water can taste like rust too

It dripped from the tap

Cold  Metallic Cold

dribbled onto the soggy soil settled under my toenails

And as strange as it was

I loved it

an old bush stood taller than all of us

bitter red berries

I didn't understand why it had to have such prickly, unforgiving leaves 

After all we were perfectly harmless children

I loved it though

Once there were dusky pebbles in my neighbor’s garden

Then they were no more

I walked into the woods sometimes

I found toadstools, flattened shampoo bottles, and ripped sweaters

between trees

The so-called leader of our hideout would be the only one to sit on the largest toadstool

One day while I was wiggling soil out of my toes

I found a worm squiggling in his toadstool

No one sat on it ever again

As strange as it was

I still love underneath the memories

Description: 

My poem is a personal recollection of my childhood world as I experienced it in the spring of my second-grade year. I feel this poem perfectly captures the way I always associate my strongest memories with the specific physical settings where they happened. For me, childhood wasn't big parks or playgrounds, but the hidden spaces like my secret hideout in the voids between bushes, the corner where I found coiled black snakes, and the nearby, wilder woods. I see these settings as characters of my memories.

[ Writing Editor: J.Y. ]