The Evacuee

I was a renegade
They knew this as I stepped
Off the train and who were these strangers
Standing on the platform, waiting for me?
I stepped down and they greeted me

They embraced me but their hearts
Remained sewn up tight and at night
They were the villains that populate
My recurrent dreams. And I was shackled
To that dark country house

Filled with shadows and spirits
And ghosts and voices from the neglected
Daemons whose faces floated above me in the dark
I was sleepless in my summertime robe
I had no Guardian

No one to narrate my story
No one to shelter me from these
Glowering spirits that gathered round my bed
Laughing and grabbing at my covers
These entities despised me

And these stone walls
Muffled my cries, my cries, my cries
Of terror, of terror, of terror
But they refused to hear me
As I waited, upright and breathless, for the morning

And decades later
They have forgotten me
They have cut my picture
Out of the family album
For one last time I look back

At that house and drive away
Finally free, finally me,
And I became a global gypsy
Leaping halfway across the world