When I was five, I ran away.
I took my favourite teddy,
Three packets of raisins,
And a blanket.
I climbed the huge old sycamore tree,
In the middle of common,
And I stayed there until it got dark.

When I was seven,
I ran away.
We were in town,
I’d been left outside the bank.
So I simply walked away.
Maybe that was the start of it.
Walking. Not running.
Disappearing. Not fighting.

When I was ten,
I ran away for real.
I took my piggy bank,
My mother’s purse,
A change of socks,
And I left just as it got dark.

When I was fourteen,
I discovered there was a different way out,
How to leave the madhouse?
Join the inmates.

When I was fifteen,
I was sent to see a man with a beard,
He asked me questions, all of them meaningless,
But one.
Why had I jumped?
I smiled. I’d been dead for a while, you see.
“Because I thought I would fly.”