Words and art by: Madeleine Galea

I used to think I was my interests, 

favourite things, 

books, quotes, colours, foods,

the idiosyncrasies that others could see, 

the things that had come naturally, 

the things I had done,

now, I’m not sure.

I feel like a grain of sand

washing around in the ocean,

trying to gain traction,

to form an island all of my own,

Instead, I’m blown from coast to coast. 

never quite mine, 

roving right into rivers of righteous irritation,

trying to find myself among cohorts of  lost souls,

trying to build my home in a hurricane. 

Instead of me are the fragments of what people have left behind,

those I admired,  

people I have loved, 

the way I cook my eggs and order my coffee,

my own reflection, 

and maybe it’s not such a curse,

to find yourself lost