In My Nature

A typical early poem, this. In the same 'lonely' vein as 'Sweet Dreams', really: the difficulties associated with living away from home for the first time, and more specifically trying to make friends while simultaneously enjoying solitude and the nature I'd grown up with. I was puzzled and frustrated by the contradictions of the two states of affairs, and couldn't work out how to make the most of them...things never seemed to happen at the right moment for me. I was pretty miserable about it!

IN MY NATURE

Welcome to my social life

It’s quiet here

Step out of the door

The silence is deafening.

And there’s no-one around

But from the corner

Of your eye

You see a flash of colour

That’s me I think.

I sit here for hours

Thinking my thoughts

And they aren’t all bad

As long as you shut up

Leave me alone.

Quiet – I like it, it likes me

I think.

No I don’t need you

Your help

Your sympathy

This is my lonely symphony

Conductor and chorus is me.

The sun shines, the animals play

I could spend all day

And frequently do

So I don’t need you.

Stop talking, let me think

And you do stop.

And I’m shocked

By the sudden silence

Now there’s no-one around.

Wait

Don’t go

I didn’t mean it

Talk, you can talk

Oh God talk to me

I’m the only one talking

The only one here.

Talking to thin air

Not just nobody, nothing

There’s nothing here

The sun, the animals

Gone from this nightmare.

There was a dream stream

But that’s gone too

How I’d have longed to

Dip my head under the cool water

For a few minutes too long.

But it’s gone and you’re gone

Where are you?

So back to the real world I crawl

To try and find them all.

Thanks to: Frances Ruffelle for Lonely Symphony (We Will Be Free), Queen for It’s A Beautiful Day, and Kate & Anna McGarrigle for Cool River.