Escaping

 escape

The letter arrived this morning, telling me my fate

"...report to ...."

Hanging on every day, to find ways to avoid that destructive world, confused inside, hating the feeling of cowardice, but also feeling right not to want to "join up" to fight

who ?

My friend Pule ? My fellow students ?

why ?

They are me and I am them. 

Human, equal, equally fighting for their lives as they should be not as they are 

the beige or blue shapes on, in or alongside the trucks as they cause mayhem, crushing lives, destroying lives, 

bringing the world down around them

Grab the thread of a chance, and a week later, Im in a car off to the airport

then in a plane

a ferry

a bus

a taxi

"get some sleep and lets catch up in the morning"

a whole new world

but my world was back there, the mountains, the crashing waves, pushing the bodies back to the beach

feeling the southern sun on my face, shoulders

thats my world

and yet now, no longer

escaped but now imprisoned in my mind, in the cold, wet country of memories and history

in this subtler form of racism, this place that supported and funded it

I wrapped my barriers and boxes around myself and became

me ?