Footprints end

Stopped in my tracks by words, by a fanfare of blasts and horns and cries and the faintest of whispers. Syllables must, sentences must not. Out, damned spot. Out, damned semi-colon.

I remember walking through an alley somewhere off the North Pole. I’m sure it was the North Pole. There is a road that leads there, in an anonymous corner west of the tower blocks and polluted highways. An encampment at midnight, where we dived under the rusty metal gate because we had woken the neighbours. Dogs barked, smelling strangers’ blood. We found ourselves in the estate, looming and anonymous and barely lit, where you disappeared again to weep against an end wall where ball games were not allowed. Blocked in and trapped.

There, right there, you told me that, one day, you wanted to sweep the streets of London with me. I didn’t know what you meant. I do now. I know each and every subject about which you were giving me clues and crumbs, because I have opened my eyes occasionally and looked inside myself.

I want to sweep the streets of London with needles, then dust it with stars, then kick the dirt into our faces. Yet I can accept that now, today, it will be alone. You’re happy in your corner, surrounded by warmth. Please stay that way. Stay and stay. And stay some more. Forever and longer, because it suits you more than the urban confusion of that alley ever did.