"You quiet my demons and bring peace to my soul" Written for Malcolm Neil Elliott

Explore me,' you said and I collected my ropes, flasks and maps, expecting to be back home soon. I dropped into the mass of you and I cannot find the way out. Sometimes I think I’m free, coughed up like Jonah from the whale, but then I turn a corner and recognise myself again. Myself in your skin, myself lodged in your bones, myself floating in the cavities that decorate every surgeon’s wall. That is how I know you. You are what I know.

I am eighty-three years old, but I only remember the last seventy-one years. You see, when I was twelve, I met a blue-eyed boy and fell in love. I can only remember the last seventy-one years because anythin' before that day don't matter. Nothin' that came before could compare to anythin' that came after. I wasn't truly alive until he looked at me for the first time. And from then on, even if I didn't know how it was possible, I knew he was mine. And he has been. Every day he has been.

Falling in love is easy. Falling in love with the same person repeatedly is extraordinary.

How does it feel, to break a part of you each day and feed to the demons inside the other person in the name of love? How many days will you do that? Have your ever thought, about what happens after those demons had enough of you and decide to leave you for the taste of new soul? Look at yourself once. How much of you is remaining for yourself? Will ever get that part of you back?

Home is where your soul is at peace even when the place is in chaos.