What Kids Don't Hear

A kid in the grocery store, maybe six,

working the velcro on his shoe—that ripping mix,

rip, stick, rip, stick, rip, stick,

five minutes straight, a repetitive trick.

His mother shopped. He sat in the cart.

That sound cut through everything, set apart.

I wanted to ask if he could hear

the way I heard it, if it was driving fear

into his mother's face, or if six-year-olds

exist in a different place, where it holds

no torture, just magic—things coming undone

and sticking back, a game, a fun

repetition that doesn't wear thin

the way it does for me, closing in.

He didn't get bored. The novelty stayed.

He just kept doing it, unafraid

of the mechanism, of the promise

that velcro makes: you can solve this,

you can separate anything and it will return,

it will stick, it will never adjourn

the possibility of going back together.

His mother reached the register.

He kept going. Rip. Stick. Rip. Stick.

The sound followed them out, a specific trick

of childhood—finding satisfaction in

repetition that would drive an adult thin.