Blog News

1. Comments are still disabled though I am thinking of enabling them again.

2. There are now several extra pages - Poetry Index, Travel, Education, Childish Things - accessible at the top of the page. They index entires before October 2013.

3. I will, in the next few weeks, be adding new pages with other indexes.

Friday 17 February 2012

China: A Day In The Life Part 2

So. When I wake up in the morning, where do I wake up? What do I wake up to?
Well it is a nice apartment. I sleep in a nice comfortable bed and I hang my clothes in a portable, but adequate wardrobe. It isn't mine though. It clearly isn't mine. The apartment, for all that it's my home at the moment, belongs to someone else who is just letting teachers use it for the year. The furnishings are comfortable and high quality but not things I would choose. The room I'm in clearly belongs to a teenager with its posters of Manga and Pop Stars. I can't change it. Hence this next poem.

Unnatural Habitat

I am present only in traces;
faint whispers against a howling wind;
a spark against a forest fire.
I cannot read the books upon the shelves.
I did not choose the pictures or the posters,
the flowers or the furniture.
Almost, I am not here at all
and yet...
and yet, here are pictures of my family
and pictures of my friends
taped to the edges of shelves,
impermanent fixtures,
where I can turn my head and remember.
And behind this curtain are my clothes.
And in this suitcase are the remnants of my life.
I am present only in traces;
occupying another' habitat.