The Long Walk Home

Every rustling leaf,
Every light, flickering,
Every noise is a threat,
My own footsteps frighten me,
Echoes all around,
Walking alone through the area
With the reputation,
I catch movements
Out of the corner of my eye,
But nothing is there,
I walk through the green
Where he was shot dead,
Such a sinister silence I have
Never experienced,
A wind blows,
Almost everything encourages me
To quicken my pace,
In the distance they stand,
Huddled and suspicious,
Too far away to hurt me,
But close enough to provide the threat,
Face forward again,
My heart skips a beat,
An old man, staggering, asks how I am,
Drunken and disorderly, he stumbles away,
My pace doubles,
Just like the beating in my chest,
A youth with a balaclava cycles by,
Giving me the eye,
But does nothing to follow it up,
Thirteen year olds loiter and doss,
No threat there,
But still I just want to be home,
Every screeching car offers fear,
Every wailing siren brings wonder,
Approaching the garden now,
One car screeches by,
Nothing doing,
I open the gate,
It slams shut behind me,
I lock the porch,
Close the door,
And am met with the sounds
Of Early Days and Centuries…

I am home.

(this poem interests me because it all happened as I wrote it, even the end when I opened my front door and my CD player had - I would find out the next day - turned itself on, almost as if to greet me coming in the door; Early Days and Centuries is a song by Guillotines, made up of Gary White, Gav White and Brian 'Bry' O'Reilly).