Come home,
my mother's voice suggests along 2,581 kilometres of phone cabling.

Come home to the hazy heat
that beats off melting pavement and wilting plants,
to the smell of exhaust
squeezing between buildings
and suburbs and rush hour and neon lights,

Come home to the aggravated traffic
wending its way through concrete landscapes
eight lane snakes placating
the clack and hum of underground trains
packed with people and briefcases and beers and graffiti
spilling out onto the streets like cough syrup glugging out of the bottle.

You sound like you need to come home.

Nah, I'm good Ma,
because I don't know how to tell you
the city makes me feel trapped

a little creature with an anxious heart
boxed in by the tarseal and the fumes and the noise.

I like knowing the borders of a town
that doesn't stretch to the horizon
driving quietly on sleeping streets in the night time
and tracing the coastline with my feet in the water

I need the sky to touch the ground, not the ragged edges of a skyline
to walk until there's nothing
but me and the bush and the birds,
and the smell of mud and dirt and rain.

I like it here, I suggest along 2,581 kilometres of phone cabling,
but I do miss you.