Walls

Walls are designed to divide space.
Here from there.
Inside from out.
Safe and familiar
from dangerous and unpredictable.
Me from you.

I am walking up the winding staircase
in an old castle.
Castle walls are solid.
Really solid.
There is nothing metaphorical about them.
They are rocks and bricks and mortar,
built up over the centuries,
fortified.
These walls are very definite
about keeping things out.
They make me feel contained:
warm, wooly-headed and slightly dizzy;
like a sick bed –
I am not at my best, but there is no need to be.
The space of illness is small and manageable:
eat, drink, sleep, stay alive…

There is a light at the top of the staircase,
it leads out onto the battlements.
I am tired of climbing.
The light at the top is too bright,
the space – too large,
the height – too vertiginous
and I am already dizzy…

I think I will sit here,
rest
and consider my options,
half way between the dungeon and the battlements,
well within the walls.