𝘓𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘊𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘥𝘢

When I was a child, I thought memories were like cicadas. They hid inside the trees, silent for years, until one summer afternoon they suddenly emerged, filling the world with a noise I could neither understand nor escape. Some memories were like that. I buried them beneath ordinary things. School mornings, birthday cakes, the smell of wet soil after rain. I learned to smile when people asked if I was happy. I learned to laugh at the right moments. I grew older, and everyone assumed that growing older meant growing free. But childhood has its own way of following you. Sometimes, I still become that little boy again, lying quietly beneath an enormous sky, pretending the world is gentle. I remember the words that hurt, the silences that lasted too long, and the people who taught me to be afraid before I even understood what fear was. For years, I blamed myself for carrying those things. I thought healing meant forgetting, as though I could simply erase the child I had been. Then, one afternoon, I heard a cicada singing from a tree outside my window. Its voice was rough and relentless, almost irritating. It sounded like something struggling to be heard after spending too long underground. I listened without moving. For the first time, I wondered whether my memories were not asking to be buried again, but simply asking to be heard. So I began listening. I listened to the child who had learned to stay quiet. I listened to the anger I had mistaken for strength, the sadness I had disguised as indifference, and the loneliness I had carried like a second skin. I stopped telling myself that it wasn't so bad. I stopped demanding that my younger self should have known better. He was only a child. He deserved tenderness, not blame. I had spent so many years trying to silence the child inside me. Now I understood that he had never needed silence. He had needed someone willing to listen. And finally, I did.

Minted

October 16, 2026

Token

2579

Contract

0x954c6365…6b13