{ just restless insight }

Just a person;
just rags and bones and a heavy past
upon a searching soul, clinging to
any ensurance of comfort and self-confirmation
there is to be found.

Just like me;
and suddenly the roles are reversed
somehow, when I wasn't paying attention,
those I've clung to have turned around and squeezed the breath
out of me with their needy hugs

Just like that;
and driven me away from them
in their fear of losing me in the first place,
reminding me for an umptieth time that
I am not a people's person.


I imagine my life in a bag, ready to move,
to re-locate, whenever I feel like it.

I imagine the streets of Venice on a clear autumn day,
and a mildly crowded coffee-shop in London.
A cemetary in Paris and the pale skies in Edinburgh at christmas.

Even the insufferable sun over the african desert, even though
I can't stand neither heat nor light or the texture of sand, but all the same,
just because I can go there, and I can leave again.

I imagine a new town every day, a new country every week,
just to feel myself moving, to ensure I'm alive.

And then I imagine the hundreds of postcards
fighting each other for space on my parents refridgerator,

just to remind me that I have a home to go back to,
and that I don't have to.

A mirror might as well be a window
depending on how you look at it.
But a wall is a wall and never much more,
unless you're feeling particularly violent
and use a big hammer.

Note: the text above is not meant to be poetry.