Have you ever felt
That you can never go home again
Or that you have never ever really been home
In all your life?
Perhaps some other world ,
Some other life,
Is missing you.
I stood alone, still a boy
Enthralled by a Master’s painting
A scene at once unfamiliar and beckoning
It was of an old mill, but that mattered not
It drew me
I wanted inside
I don’t know why
It felt like home
A long time I stood
A tall man in a grey suit
Asked if he could help
I stammered, confused,
Looked from him back to the painting
He smiled,
Put a hand on my shoulder,
Walked away.
Older now,
I imbibed with peers
That which was unwise for me
It changed my mind
Changed my mind
I looked back with longing
Even to homelessness felt before the Old Mill
For now I was so far away
So far away
I did not want to stay
Just like the boy I was at ten
Who climbed the highest diving tower
On a dare
I, who had never even been
In the deep end.
So desperately afraid
But poked and prodded
By the jibes of the bullies below
To walk the plank.
I must take the plunge.
I must do it.
I cannot go back.
What came of it?
The boy of ten grew into something else,
Within and without
And the bullies scattered,
Sensing trouble.
But now this self wrought wrong
This play for peer approval
Had brought me to a wrong turning
And I was
So far away
Too far away.
