If I could make my own adults,
I’d shape them gently—
after the foggy warmth of grandmothers' laps
and the way a mother tucks in the corners of a blanket like a promise.
I’d build them with leftover laughter from childhood
pressed into the hollows of their cheeks,
the kind that resurfaces when they laugh with their eyes closed.

I’d stir in a spoonful of Camus—
so they'd look at the sky and feel both lost and held.
A pinch of Kierkegaard’s dread,
just enough to make them pause in grocery aisles and wonder why they exist.
I’d press in the ache of Rilke’s longing,
a little secret pocket sewn into their chest
for rainy days and silent heartbreaks.

They’d carry Sartre too—
so dinner menus and job applications
feel like existential battlegrounds.
But I wouldn’t forget to fold in dreams—
old ones passed down like heirlooms from Jung,
stitched with thread only their soul remembers.

And beneath it all,
beneath the calluses and rent receipts and well-meaning chaos,
I’d keep the baby soft part intact—
the part that still wants to plop into someone’s lap,
even if they no longer know how to ask.