I started early.
Ignoring the blossom and bird songs, I filled the brazier
with broken wood and redundant firelighters.
It took a few struck matches before ignition erupted into passionate flames.

I held a large, orange hardback record of my misery and let it slip into the furnace which seized it hungrily.

Others followed, the years vanishing faster than light. Tedious accounts of my travails, and escapist travels.

2009 burnt slowly.
Ash started to float around me,
The bound became unbound releasing my secret contained life.
My words became embers, freeing me to write a fresh narrative. Metamorphosis.
Suddenly the fire escaped and I rushed for water chiding my carelessness. Steam hissed.
Smouldering, toxic smoke lingered.

The day after I burnt my journals I fell. I found myself suddenly flying
and twisting and falling.
And finally landing on my back.

I lay there legs akimbo,
like an upturned beetle,
waiting for the rush of rescuers.
I knew the score.
Wait to be helped.
Receive kind strangers’ concern.

Ushered into the furniture shop I was offered various upholstered chairs – Big signs read £60, £88 or a £100 sofa –
but I refused, knowing my place.
I was not a spender but a scrounger,

dragged in off the streets.
I saw a plastic chair by a desk and made for that to everyone’s relief. A kind man put a glass of ice cold water into my grateful hand.
It flowed inside my battered body like silver.

He rushed for the first aid kit keen to hone his well trained skills.

“Can I call someone?”
“Surely there is someone you can call” “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

I give my thanks and take my solitary soul out into the world now darkened with risks and threats. Once home I reach for my laptop to capture the words ignited by the trip.