It's Still Life

Stream of Consciousness: Blackfriars Station Southbound

I listen to the steadiness of train tracks. It’s an older song now, replaced by long steel rails humming with boredom. The conductor scans the code on my ticket, mumbles something, walks on.

Summer gathering on the verges. Spring was only a skipped heartbeat. Wild rhododendrons blooming pink as chewing gum.

Chewing gum under tables, under chair seats. Why. There is no thin veil beneath them, no entrance to another dimension. It stays there like a scar.

The motion rocks a woman of indeterminate age to sleep. Her coat rolled against her shoulder. One AirPod in place. Sleep gathered behind her eyes. She startles when I touch her knee:

move your handbag, love,
someone will nick it while you’re sleeping.

She wedges it into the gap beside her, mumbles thanks, returns to sleep.

I close my eyes.
Open.
Focus.
Close.

Orthoptic exercises.

Distance: the Crystal Palace antenna topping the hill.
Near: a heart scratched into the window —
young love
added to its ledger.

Thoughts reined in by station names, sliding doors, and gaps meant for agile knees.

There is a yew tree in Ystad with one branch missing. Lightning. I heard the crack split the dark — deep, full, heavy as earth. That branch once carried the bent weight of an old woman who was, then, the age I am now. Her walking stick tapping root and stone.

Mine is blackthorn.
Rock solid.

Most days
I do not need it.

Now
is all I am.

Same as it ever was.
Same as I ever was.

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Some images created with Midjourney; all writing is authentically my own original work.©Misky 2006-2026.