I come from the smoky rooms of former North London cottages
A place where, as time goes by becomes more urbanised and exotic as does its people
A close peaceful community nudged out by hordes of shoppers, losing your family in the chaotic crowds as the familiar becomes ever increasingly strange
The cosy smells of fish and chips, apples, fruit and wool, overtaken by spice and petrol as new buildings pop up like toadstools in the night
The meadows I played on with dogs and cousins too polluted now, the solution? More pollution of course, another hundred toadstools pop up to house more strangers, till the village is devoured by the ever starving beast called London
I come from the gossiping nurses and the nagging sheet metal workers, sitting around smoking their money and complaining that making it is too hard!
The smell of bleach stuns your senses and makes your eyes bleed but at least it’s clean
Helicopters sing you lullabies as you fall asleep and police sirens wake you up the next day
I come from neighbours leaning over your fence, giving you gardening advice and cake and eventually curry!
Stray dogs chasing loose cats and getting run over by milk carts
Pigeons swamping the garden pecking at stale bread and the last lizard I’ll ever see gets taken by a fat crow, falling down roof tiles and into a gutter unceremoniously
I come from two sides of a road that society says shouldn’t be crossed
But here I am and I am me and both sides are equally mine
I come from sugar, fat and bread, fizzy drinks and tea
Pure white walls broken by ivory and chrome
Vacuums replaced yearly due to overuse and the bigger the telly the more kudos to you!
I come from a large garden, a sanctuary and au pair
I come from fashion critics, jealousy and violence
In books I hid myself in multiple worlds so that it could never touch me
So I would be free to be me and not them
Finding my own way to a new place
A place that is more like me
It is lost forever now, that place, where I come from.
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