A Girl a World Apart by Natasha Carthew

The long walk home
as brief as one momentary memory
a drop in the ocean
undulating
circles time
makes a moment mute
the decision to return, retrace
make space
for this
complicated childhood

Your heart in one hand
unopened notebook in the other
a promise to remember more than the photo
on your mothers wall
so old it holds no recollection
except that finite figure is you
pride of place somewhere at the back of your mind
small girl bent to the rocks

The slow walk across the shingle beach
headland to headland to headland
like rolling heat, heart beats
the constant shifting horizon
silent
except for the needy tide
and the warm summer sun fallen into the bay
risen as swarm
flies and hoppers and crawling crocodile sugar-kelp
the bright light white
all fallen stars
eager to join the rock search
until I find her
plain amongst the coconut stink kids
a girl immersed in cool pool water
oblivious to the sound of future plans
making everything up
this girl a world apart

Driftwood boat
bit of cuttlefish and polystyrene, tar to stick
keeping the dream afloat
sunshiny orange custom-cut for the miniature sail boat
two periwinkles safe sitting
the daydreamer kid
and an imaginary friend
not yet met
but soon
somehow she knew
it would take another to help lift her up
out of the comfortable hideaway water
and trace her fingertips against the surface of the earth
the loneliness of childhood written
and then forgotten
until

This place
a beach washed clear and replaced with ocean
clean slate
a space to create
no matter how I blended in to the dark grit cliffs
my rough Cornish heritage worn
to my chest despite the tarnish
an honourable gift, a badge
no matter that occasionally the pin stuck in
pride was the place
my birth
and the birth of kin
going way back to the beginning

Sea-salt anchored into that young girl’s blood
dew-damp mizzle netted tight to her tongue, her lungs
shouting out directions to the world
that always seemed so oblivious
to the future
older self
not quite a girl or a boy and never so simple
as just another woman
cliff sitting
watching
remembering that wish to sail
away
the want to discover another world
only to find herself returned
that world
this
is mine

The long think that brought me back to it
time in reverse and a picture perfect peninsula
I know now
this seemingly idyllic postcard
was always just mine
no matter how long or how sudden the run
my stumbled return
I never truly left this
place
as much a part of me as the yawning ocean
the liminal sky
who knew from the start
that a girl so incredibly good at disguise
would eventually slip her skin
to become
a new thing
beautiful
written within all the seasons and the tides and heart
a place not made of beginnings or endings but everything
a new story
and a world
apart.