eeeek, this ia a bit personal... (and long!) but all the more reason for it needing to be right, so lemme know what you think and dont spare the pill / sugar the horses... Thank Yooooooou, Sally xxxx

 

Home Town Blues

 

Something always happens in my head,

when the train slows by the big red shed.

The one that squats in the industrial park,

next to the estate where I was born.

During this unscheduled but inevitable stop,

my fingers shakey-scramble in my bag

and I pop my headphones in, scrolling

for that song.

The one I need to carry me off the train

and across to catch my bus.

The one who’s sound

superstitiously ushers me

into my home town.

 

And I wonder why this unknown fluttering?

Why this last minute reluctance

to go home?

To settle back into the stone and mortar

of my mortal coil.

This is where I’m from,

and is it not where calm is breathed in my chest

by the rumble and rattle

of the boiling kettle

as I stand making tea in a real pot

for seven, instead of one?

 

Maybe it’s because

the bus station is full of children

with babies in prams,

and I feel old, cos I’m like

Where are their mams? But it’s them.

Its their own little ones

covered in pasty crumbs,

so they’re like baby, baby mums.

 

Its all giant earrings and metallic eyes,

and then I hesitate,

catching myself in the mirror, in the loo

and I realise, with dismay

that that is still my armour

and my war paint too

after all these years away.

 

Maybe it’s what this town does

to this brain of mine.

Like one day I was trying to recall

that famous opening line

from Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca

and I realised I couldn’t,

but I could go one better-

and though I’ve never read anything

by WB Yeats,

I could name every single great

UK released single by Britney Spears,

in order.

That’s what comes from small town boredom.

 

And if home is where the heart is, then pieces

of my heart are secreted

all over the shop,

but really

I know it’s not that.

 

I like to ignore it

and try to be a grown up,

but its come flooding back to me,

every time I’ve shown up.

Burned on my mind like a retinal scar,

burned into time like a supernova star.

 

You are not here.

You are not here anymore,

but I can see you everywhere,

and as I breath in the air,

of the town that we were born in

I know that for once tomorrow morning

when I shudder awake at dawn

like always

and my first though is

who else has been taken away today?

I will know they’re all ok

because if I pad from my childhood bed

to my door way, then standing in my nightie

I can hear them breathing

just across the landing.

 

I will not waste this life,

when yours was taken away.

But sometimes all I want

is to hear the soft in/out of redemptive air

the dark rush of blood in veins and rustle of hair

on the pillows of my family,

and know we’ve been allowed another day.

 

I will not waste this life,

when yours has been taken away,

so I am scared to get off the train

in this small town,

because if I do

I might just stay.

Because I might just stay.

I might

Just

Stay.

Last night

I dreamed I went to Manderley.