I Don't Know What's Real Anymore
20th June 2023

I really need to extract myself from this existence,
exit all the little expectations and norms,
thrown at me through the years,
sticking like burrs, pricking like thorns,
dead-ening me.

I can feel the escape there,
it is a self-fulfilling prophecy coming on with the steadfastness of a locomotive,
one of those big ones we used to crawl over in parks as kids,
real and alive with all the noise and steam and whistles;
and painted black,
…with all the other endless unforgiving detail that I don’t see at first,
I am sure,
until it cuts me up on the way through that is,
leaving me bloodied, bruised,
in it's wake,

...maybe a little bit free-er than I was,

...maybe.

Cow Passing,
Isle of Skye,
Scotland.