I couldn’t find my way back home.

Lost in the myriad of same looking streets,

strapped of cash, not enough for a small bowl

of porridge, I ran back to where you were, but

you had left, I heard the disembodied voice

of a past smote dragon lingering but why was it your face

now, here in this lost frightening present

in which I focused and the same streets, all semi detached

houses, nothing unique about them at all,

I had never been lost before

and I couldn’t find my way back home.

 

I saw an old friend, once so cool but who had

decided to tongue lash me in public, who smiled sweetly

and told me he would tell my boss I would be late,

and another who saw me breaking down

lost in the same streets, lost in confusion

his guitar strapped to his back like a Ninja’s sword

being used by a pacifist who wouldn’t help me

to my home but who at least

passed me a black book full of addresses

and who spoke kindly saying that mine must be one

of these written in what looked crazy paving detached writing.

 

I was lost, this really was all too real,

more real than life, more real than

the confusion I felt, the different dog

that answered to my buddy Sammy’s name

and who barked and tried to lead me home

but in who I couldn’t keep up with,

confused that in my dream I was running.

In the terror of being abandoned, I just stopped

still and screamed and the daylight flooded in

through my curtains of my terraced home, and breathless, hyper-

ventilating I staggered up the stairs to make sure

you were still there.

I was lost.

 

Ian D. Hall 2015