Longing...

I don't know what else to say other than I've been inspired (again) by my constant longing to go 'home' to the UK. I spent most of 2008 in Edinburgh, Scotland. From there, I travelled extensively throughout the UK. It changed my life forever and I doubt that I will ever stop thinking about my other (no, not even second; other!) home. 

Some who know me may (read 'do') think I am obsessed, but they were not there. They did not experience what I experienced, nor can anyone, least of all the island itself, ever know how much I long to return (it is my greatest wish and sole ambition).

This is a very personal poem inspired by a very British-sounding song (however silly that may sound) that I just heard in a very British television series that I'm watching again (though the title is inspired by part of the lyrics of another song by the same band, and the band is actually American. Weird, I know; but hey, it works).

You don't know what I go through

I sway to your rhymes,

Writhe in the agony of my memories;

You are too far away

Oh how cursed could one be

To be born of nowhere

Yet long to belong

To you?

You don't know what I go through

The long nights

I ache

I cry

I choke on your melodies,

Shed tears on the pages of your history;

Why are you so far away?

 

If only this cursed land

Would spit me out,

but consume my pain

That I might be free

You don't know what I go through

The burning days

I want to forget

I want to leave behind

You don't  know what I go through

Andrea Vermaak