Travelling

digital illustration by amy leonard

Sitting on trains looking out of windows at the rain is enough for me. We talk about unravelling, like when a yarn becomes disentangled and unwoven from its piece, or when a life frays about the seams. But what about ravelling? Winding up like a thread onto a spool? Like working lace into a knot?

In the dark the train makes slow progress. And I think everyone can see that I’m wound up tight, knot-like. Though, I’ve spent so long travelling I’ve started untravelling. It’s like the curiosity that makes the cat roam, they plot a new map and they never come home.

"THE HOSPITAL BY THE SEA"

I like to live where I can see the sea. It reminds me that I am tiny. The ceaseless shifting of a million points of light connected by the netted surface are hypnotic like a fireside, like television sets, like hideous catastrophe. Shadows and light, shadows and light - a sprinkle of fishes, sinking like coins in a wishing well. I am in three places at once, on land, at it's bed, and I am also far away.

The moon, bone-white, drawing the tides. It looms. I lope away from the hospital, hating that I'm tired. I wish there was someone better then me to protect you. You're a rose-bud in a hothouse. The nurses are gardeners, tending to you, tweaking the dials and watching you grow, waiting with me to see if you'll root here on this earth. Maybe you won't. Maybe I sniffed you down from that place of angels on a chain of stars, and you were better off so far above.

I hope that you intend to stay. Is there someone I can pray to?

©Amy Leonard, 2016.