White walls wash plain the mind;
These things that fill the void sit
Uncomfortably – dislocated.
Bric-a-brac and tat surround the
Mattress at which I feign death
Each night with mourning lullabies.
These things are not my things,
Furnishings borrowed and branded
With years of another’s affection,
Foreign familiarity floating from them
Like hairs standing attentive, shivering,
On gooseflesh arm cast out
From under duvet-shroud.
Even the books are borrowed,
Prometheus bound to return
To his home where the walls
Are not white but a shade of familiar.
It is an uneasy chair, I realise,
That sits before the plugs perfectly
Placed in a grand design for comfort –
For ease of presupposed habits.
The few true valuables I hold
Have been boxed and bargained
For so long they feel as relics,
As behind a glass case the eyes
Of the malted yellow bear stare
With an amber intensity,
Waiting for the return of the
Decrepit child – 95 or dust.
I dream of fairies and lights;
A gentle glow morphing
These sterile shadows
Into a welcoming gloom –
A warm dusk of shapes,
Swaying, as round darknesses
Spin jazz to the moon.
Photo: cottonbro (2020)
Poet Bio
Home?
Northumberland
What is home to you?
Some nebulous space between all the places and people I love.
Olivia Railton is an English undergrad in her final year of study at Christ's College, Cambridge. Raised primarily in the North of England, Olivia has moved house around twelve times in her life, so the idea of 'home' can be quite complicated.