It was cold

It was cold

Empty as a false promise

I shouldn’t have gone

What is it about hometowns

That brings you back

To yourself?

Childhood pranks

Running with the wild boys

The smell of a cornfield

Overgrown hedgerows

High and wide

Ripe for hideaways.

Thorny, tearaway safety

Shadowy play

When being invisible was

An exotic escape

A visit to a foreign land.

How foolish it was to build

Separateness from an early age.

The memory grows

More interesting

In its creativity

The truth barely registers

Until it slaps you in the face.

Nothing is as it was

Or maybe it is as it is

Flat as a flounder.

As bleak as an empty beach

Covered in coal dust,

When a rusted sluice

Is a landmark location.

The centre of the known world

Smaller than its evocation

Barely bigger than its footprint

On my soul.

It looks better in retrospect

More welcome

In retrograde

Easier on the eye

Through the rearview.

Step on it.