There was a time
we knew which compounds to enter
when nobody was watching.

Yours had that old gate
that never opened quietly.

We would push it slowly,
then stop whenever it complained,
waiting to hear if anybody was coming.

Nothing.
So we would slip inside.

Bare feet on the dusty compound,
a half-flat ball between us,
two slippers for goalposts
and one boy always arguing
that the ball had crossed the line.

We played until somebody’s mother
started calling from a window.

Then suddenly,
everybody remembered home.

Sometimes we stayed longer,
hiding behind the water tank
when we heard footsteps outside.

Childhood was like that.

We didn’t have much,
but somehow an empty compound
was enough for an entire afternoon.

Years later,
I passed that same street.

The gate was still there.

A little more rust.
A little more tired.

I stood outside for a while
and remembered how we used to enter
like the whole place belonged to us.

I don’t remember who won most of those games.

I don’t remember the scores.

I only remember
how easily we found each other back then.

How a closed gate
could become a football field.

How an ordinary afternoon
could last forever.

And how I would give anything now
to hear that gate complain again

not because I wanted to go inside,

but because I miss the boys
who used to run through it.