It’s really odd

This growing and simultaneous shrinking

Into honeyed sticky index fingers

When all I want is to know maybe what the future holds

Will I be old or successful?

Or will I have to settle?

Will I become the women in my life that I gazed widely at from the ground upwards

When wellies were partnered with muddy puddles

And rice cakes snapped louder and the snap was important and

When powdered mash tasted good

And butterfly face pint didn’t represent a hopeful tattoo which could provide me with a quick fix

To grab your attention.

What has really changed then between then and now?

Between leaping with such energy from the train to the platform

Across the moat of danger and depth

To gazing at the front of the train carriage lights in the dark

In the deafening silence of the station

Wondering where the time went and

The Richmond train is in 11 minutes

But really I wonder where I am now compared to then and I wonder and wonder and wonder even about life, my life and death, my death and

What would happen if the lights came rushing into me like a million galaxies colliding right now

In this second

And I didn’t make it to Richmond

Or rather on the train

Would people care more? I wonder who would

Speak

Who would cry

Who would bring flowers

Like the mixed red and yellow one he got me on our first sleepover

Our second date

The doors shut with a shaky quivering sigh and under certain bleep closing the doors 30 seconds before departure

And I’m off and up and away

A lost boy in my dream and rhythmically going home to start all over again and listen to Tom Odell on a not too loud setting so my parents think I am doing just fine

But I guess

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while you could miss it.