The happy place

The memory is fragmented

I get these patches which might be gray or colourful, even some with flowers on there, but there’s so much missing, I feel like

It’s going to have to be a quilt, then

That’s the best I can do, unfortunately

I remember one Walpurgis fire, or say Beltane (for I am a heathen), and I was eating hot dogs by the giant fire and it’d just started to darken and I might have been with my friend but then suddenly some neighbour’s kid (technically also a neighbour of course) threw a firecracker or shot a rocket which exploded near me. I heard it ringing in my right ear, and I started crying because I got a shock and I walked home with the ringing in my ear and I think back now that I feel sorry for myself then

For the child I was.

And I thought that that was a breakthrough in a sense, because thinking back on who I was then always used to fill me with contempt.

Now that I think on it, I haven’t got any pictures of myself from this time either…