grass spinning by the window of the car
whipping round and round
round and round
far above my head.

a memory like an oil painting
the first time i saw evil
shining from someone's eyes
like a beacon.

running, packing, running
as the roof came crashing down
the insects gathered, parasitic
on the shell of their burnt-out home.

thirteen snails and i
making a journey
oblivious to how it would shape the course
of our lives.

they're blue eyes, not brown
you're wrong
how do you know?
my answer rocked the very sky.

crawling pathetically
dragging my exhausted self across the grey
like some kind of bizarre slow worm
a leech on my own house.

the swooping, the draining, the sepia walls
it was the fault of the beads, of course
of me, and of her
for giving them.

seeing her slumped on the floor
dressed in glass
with crimson make-up
shivering in my nightclothes
as the dogs howled behind.

he had fuzzy caterpillar eyebrows
and the evillest laugh i ever heard
his wife gave me a sink
and signalled to keep quiet.

soon i learned
not to trust items with censored details:
boarded-up windows, blacked-out vans and
chained-up rooms.

soon i learned
so many things