Poetry | It's not a marathon drinks station

I want to make a meaningful approach to

The Self in me. I need poetry to find it,

It is hard to find it in cities, running after things,

I am tempted to compare it to a marathon drinks station,

But there is no poetry there, and I would have

To pretend that a marathon were something real,

Which it isn’t, because at any moment, you can

Stop, sit down and just decide to leave the race.

I need a big idea, something, lofty and eternal,

I need to say: ‘abundant and irrefutable reprieve’,

I can meet it on the page by conjuring a scene,

I am walking somewhere, forced away,

My home's destroyed, I'm crossing unknown spaces,

I don't know if there'll be food ahead, a cold night,

Perhaps I'll face a night where I am hunted,

I finally accept that, and chose the path of least resistance,

Then, on the horizon, I spot a place, luminous in the dusk,

Where the light from the windows, the chimney smoke

Are so recognisable it seems to be home again,

But also more than home, the place I was always

Waiting for, a palace built of my most loving thoughts,

I know all the things I thought were missing are here.

I have been wandering in those critical journeys for so long,

I am not conjuring now, I am saying it straight,

The inn was always waiting, invisible, but I forgot that self-love

Summons its parameters, fills its windows

With light, its rooms with warmth, makes the bed

And smoothens the sheets for when I come to rest.