Caledonian

Creative writing using the first line from Home by Vanessa Haley

It is years since I’ve been here,

*

It is years since I’ve been here

where there are so many reasons to be cheerful

listed in the brochure,

and posted Instagram mountains

birth lochs and sands

while the umbilical road winds out an invitation to speed.

Where the hotel stands at the cross roads

and is no faded beauty

because its walls are far too shot for that.

White harling blown into pustules

and windows rotted by the whipped-in salt

and the bad owners who do not care.

Where there is nothing but you to keep me

because it was not my dream

to fiddle that sort of music

or run those hills or give up

the city thrust

that was my chosen birth right.