When privilege has you scattered
others don't see the drain
of a life mapped in tatters,
each scrap on a different plane;
life has left me perpetually lost
but how else could I be found,
how else would I learn the cost
of directions not homeward bound?
I look over the undead corpses
of the homes I used to know -
one that crawled in roses
spelt my childhood the most
they bloomed in all the colours
that a child's heart could dream
and stained the century-old windows
so it seemed the little house did gleam
and when we left it ripped my heart out,
though not the first nor last home lost,
but that's what true love is about -
being left hollowed out with frost.
And now my memories are in footsteps,
trodden away from my new home,
because with age comes curiosity
and a desire to be alone
and when I walk these old Cheam streets,
a village slipping through London's fingers,
my heart beats through my ambling feet
and the ache of pure love lingers
because the walls crumble at my touch
and the streetlights flicker red and die
because the city is at an Oyster touch
but trees are gathered at my side
because the huge huddled houses loom
but birds and foxes can still roam
because bulbous roses will always bloom
in a place that I call home.

But this time I am leaving,
for a different city now,
though this town on London's border
is the best one I have known;
my footsteps travel further
but to a place, for once, that's mine
but I'll take all of these memories
and a rose to keep the time.