Froggatt Close

(Written after my mum moved out of the house I grew up in)

I seem to have floated into a lilac room upstairs in 4 Froggatt Close. Not too large, not too small. It’s a room that says “This Is My Personality” in what this girl thinks is a subtle way. A sword over here, quill over there, discarded flower presses, photos of friends arranged meticulously in patterns, pencil scribblings on the wall next to her bed. And yes, lots of lilac. Lilac seemed like a good idea.

I can see a girl sitting on the rooftop out of her bedroom window. She glances sharply round at me, but the distortion of light, shapes and reflection mean she can't see me. Or maybe I'm invisible.

It's cold, she's got a scarf wrapped tightly around her shoulders and her type-writer balanced precariously on her knees. Her bedroom door is tightly closed, locked, though the lock is a flimsy one - hand screwed on one desperate Sunday. Now it looks drunk, or hungover, lopsideldly wobbling and clinging to the door frame like a pissed bouncer still trying to do its job.

But out of the window another world awaits. The sky, the trees, the pure scope of space. And there she writes. Sometimes thoughts, feelings, books, poems, sometimes rubbish.

She is overwhelmingly aware of how unattractive she thinks she is, but there are no mirrors on the rooftop. She is almost out of body, beyond herself, only her mind exists. Here, she can close her eyes and be anyone, think anything. Her head is full to bursting. It is all Lyra and Will, Frodo and Sam, Kestrel and Bo, Jane and Rochester and it is words that gives her meaning. Words that make her cry and throw into chaos any notion that this world holds enough in it for her. And when the thought often - desperately often - occurs of her poor physical self (she is a teenage girl after all), the same conclusion floats in providing some comfort: "I am nothing to look at, but my mind is all sprawling, whizzing fireworks.”

The school day is a distant memory to her now because being alone has power. And when people see her at school, a strong throng of friends deep, getting hyperventilatingly hyper with giggles and fun and frolics and who'd know? Here she is a different she, the same, all one. She dreams of an all-encompassing love that will surely wrap around her tighter even than her scarf is doing now. So strong, so firm and cup-of-tea-comfortingly warm, she will never feel the cold again.

She knew even then that she was not the young people that older people referred to. At school, she carries a miniature leather-bound Romeo and Juliet in the inner pocket of her blazer (closest to her heart), occasionally retreating to the toilet just to re-read a passage. And then back into the chaos, the laughter, the nonsense.

She's shivering, but she doesn't mind. She can hear her mum washing up with the window open in the kitchen downstairs, singing snatches of Tracy Chapman. Usually the same line or two caught on repeat. The wind blows a particularly flamboyant gust at her and time takes on a wave-like undulating quality. She knows this stolen hour can't last; eventually her body will catch up with her stubbornness and goosebumps will prevail. As nature intended.

Until then, it is just... stories. Stories. Stories stories stories. Stories that weave like ribbons of colour, dancing like crazy and when they snap away from the ground they tap inside her head.

I am her. And she is me.

And I am coming back to you.