Lyrics

I found her in the hallway of a dream I didn't plan
She was sitting on the carpet with a crayon in her hand
She looked up and she knew me though I'd left her long ago
She said: what took you so long? I said: I didn't know

She was drawing suns with faces, every color wrong and right
Purple oceans, seven moons, a dog made out of light
No one taught her composition, no one graded what she drew
She was making worlds for fun because that's what makers do

They said grow up, said act your age, said put those daydreams down
But they confused my wonder for a thing that I'd outgrow

This is my second childhood
Not the one they stole but the one I choose
This is my second childhood
Innocence without the bruise
I'm not going backwards, I am going through
To the girl who trusted everything she knew
This is my second childhood
And she's been waiting here the whole time, inside of you

She remembers how to belly-laugh until her body ached
She remembers rain as music, not a schedule being changed
She remembers asking why until the answers fell apart
And the falling was the doorway to the question in her heart

They said be serious, said be smart, said wonder is for fools
But the fool who wonders knows more than the scholar with his rules

This is my second childhood
Not the one they stole but the one I choose
This is my second childhood
Innocence without the bruise
I'm not going backwards, I am going through
To the girl who trusted everything she knew
This is my second childhood
And she's been waiting here the whole time, inside of you

I kneel down and I take her hand
She's not fragile - she's the strongest thing I am
She's the part of me that never learned to lie
The part that looks at everything and doesn't ask the price
She says: you don't have to earn the right to play
You don't have to suffer first to feel the day
You were born already worthy of the light -
You just forgot, you just forgot, but that's alright

This is my second childhood
Not a regression, not a retreat
This is my second childhood
Where the woman and the wonder meet
I am not smaller, I am finally whole
The grown-up body with the unedited soul
This is my second childhood
And she was never gone - she was just below

Hello, little one
I'm here now
I'm not leaving again