Melancholy.


It had taken forty years to find back to the house
where I was born, a two storey timber framed
home, smaller than I remembered it to be; painted
now it looked rather smug and middleclass, bet
the owners were lawyers with pale children.

Although the windows were the same, the house
didn’t recognize nor like me, staring at me with
glassy contempt; “So, friend, a lick of paint and
educated owners and you think you’re posh, it’s
the people who lived here I miss, not you, I know
every rotten plank you’re made of it only takes
a can of petrol and you are history.”

Harsh words it needed to be said, my memories
of a happy childhood is self invented, the reality
was of poverty and indignity; I hastily left, don’t
belong here - never did. Nostalgia! Who needs it?