The Outsider

I wrote this poem, called 'The Outsider' in January 1999, whilst living aboard my boat in West Cork, Ireland. When you live on a boat at sea, people, in general, make almighty assumptions about you - who you were, who you are,  where you came from, you must be weird, you're homeless, you're a dropout, you're totally nuts, and far worse.
Others never really know the truth about us, which in my case was that I felt this way before I left land to float away.  Living on the sea gave me freedom and taught me to survive, no matter what life threw at me...  and it threw with a vengeance.

The Outsider
There are worlds of people everywhere,
A life that is not mine.
I’m swimming through the mud and dirt
Of life’s floor
Feet heavy
Head high
Alone.
Trees are my conversation,
Whispering mass sweet nothings in my ear
And shouting out so loud that
They are alive.
The sky holds me in
Keeps me grounded,
The pale blue ceiling of my life.
The air cleans and freshens my breath and
The ground gives me stability
Where nothing else can.
The flowers that decorate my world
Are the icing on the cake.
They sleep in drifts of scent upon ethereal stalks of life.
Rather like me.
Most of all I love
The wind on my skin,
Brushing away the death of cells
I no longer need.
Or want.
The outsider
Lives alive yet not alive.
Living but not
Without that which life really needs.
Copyright @ Amanda Anderson West 1999
Maybe there is a song in there...

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