Leave(s)

I have a place to live. It has a bed in it that I own and possessions that are of some importance to me. My bed is simple but comfortable and has a thick warm doona and lovely sheets on it. I share my home with two strangers who are becoming less so. The garden has a plum tree and a loquat tree. It is full of dried leaves. The path to bus stop every morning is also covered in leaves. A golden brown carpet that lines the streets, that crunches under my feet and breaks the usual sound of my gait. The trees stand bare and naked, waiting for the cold of winter to pass, asleep until the spring. The air is fresh, breathable despite the cold and dry. The birds are foreign, I don't recognise the families they belong to, their colours and shapes are unfamiliar.

In the past two and a half years I haven't owned a bed of my own. I haven't had a permanent job. I haven't had the intention of staying in the one place for more than a few months. The world is a confusing place. One I love to explore, yet one that has left me trapped, by myself and by others. By being tied and obliged to a place I didn't want to be at. Everything that I have wanted and cared about in my life has focused around a single longing to be away from the city that I grew up in. A country town with delusions of grandeur where I have felt nothing but judgment, pain and unhappiness in for many years.

I am not in Perth anymore, there is no reason for me to return for more than a fleeting moment. The temperature, the sky, the buildings, the trees, the birds all tell me this. But it's the sense of calm and the unfamiliar contentment in myself that really gives it away.