Airports

Lines in airports
double up with people
and inpatience.

This Place

Knowing that I was leaving, I put on a façade...and I disowned it. By 'it' I mean this place - this place which was home to me for four years; that's almost half a decade may I just point out. When you've only lived for twenty years or so, that almost-half-a-decade takes up a significant percentage of your life. And yet, I was still able to disown it. Not without some tears and heartache if I may add, because, this was the place where I grew up (in four years) and watched people change as I changed. These streets, I knew them all, and the people, I knew how they worked. I knew everything about this place - but I disowned it, to save me from homesickness and loss. I disowned it because I knew, in leaving, I'd love it too much.

Funny

Funny
you never mentioned
how you were hurt
or angry.
Funny
how it all came out now.
Words unspent
on understanding
or expressing
become weapons
in time
and it's just funny
how you chose to
say them all now;
even funnier
that you think
you've said it all before.

Cobbled Streets

These cobbled streets

I know

have been left behind

on a whim

in pursuit

of somewhere else.

These cobbled streets

I loved

have been abandoned

by me

but adopted 

by others.

These cobbled streets

will form new memories

for others

but not for me

because I left them behind

in my pursuit

for somewhere else.

Running Out

Running out of lines

we dance under chandeliers

prolonging what's left;

we notice the months go by

and here we are

hand-in-hand

and speechless.

Running out of time

we watch the lights fall

and we dim into 'The End';

'Happily ever after'

was not to be

and we part

without looking back.

Find

Songs beautiful

short and sweet

like rain in summer

brief and intense

warm like you.

I remember something 

in the night

nothing like anything

I can

hold. It dies

living me

in the dark

and I wonder:

where have you gone?

I feel the tune;

it hums at me

telling me

to find you.

Where do you lie?

I grope in the dark

and you're

nowhere. Nowhere

to be seen or found;

you lie...you lie...

Come closer

so that I can feel you

hand on hand

on elsewhere 

for songs

to drag us away

and you can
find me too.

To be Taken Away

A train speeds by Clapham Junction on its way to Haslemere and I remain here. It is cold - winter's air was whipped up by the speeding train and an overwhelming cold front bears down on the platform I'm standing on. As the train disappears, I feel the anti-climatic silence it left in its wake.

I want to go home.

The next train will be mine. 20.52, the sign reads. It is now 20.32. I'm waiting patiently. I desperately want to get out of this cold. London feels so alien to me and nothing here feels real enough for me to grasp - the place, the people - the workings of Greater London is a mystery to me.

I can't wait to be home.

It's now 20.39. I wonder about time and how its brought me here. Four years ago, I was living with family and now I am on my own - not completely; I am with friends - well, not exactly; they're in Surrey and I'm waiting to get on that train which will bring me through the winding train lines of the London-Surrey border so that I can go home. 

I wish I never left home.

It's 20.50. They just announced the train for Portsmouth is pulling into the station - this is my train. It pulls in front of me exactly at 20.52 and the doors open. As people disembark onto the platform, I leave it, taking my bag with me. It is a small bag with just enough clothes for one night because that's all I'll be needing. The train begins to pull away from Clapham Junction, and within seconds, we pick up speed and the view outside becomes a mass of incomprehensible colours and forms. I'm very excited.

I'm almost home.