The Button Lights Up
There’s a joy so small you could miss it
a fingertip pressed to cool metal,
a soft click,
a circle of light.
The button lights up,
and for a child,
that means everything.
It means I did this.
I made the world move.
They race to it,
squabble over whose turn it is,
as if this one act
holds the weight of glory.
And in a way, it does.
Because there’s a moment in childhood
when every button pushed
feels like possibility.
When cause and effect
is still a kind of magic.
When the world responds
just because you asked it to.
But we grow.
We learn to wait.
We let others go first.
We forget the thrill
of something lighting up
just for us.
Somewhere along the way,
We stop fighting for the button.
We wait. We defer.
We look at our phones.
We forget that once,
This tiny act was a triumph.
And maybe that’s what growing up steals
Not the moments themselves,
But the meaning we used to give them.
Not the button,
But the belief
That we once had the power
To make things move.
We stop looking around
to see if anyone saw us
make the button light up,
because joy like that
is a gift to our children.
The button still lights up.
And then it goes out.
Like all those little joys
we quietly pass on for something new to light up.
