On the edge of Black Mountain, nestled among grass, blanket bog and bronze age cairns, three liberty caps have sprouted, their nipples wet and small. I had asked them to find me.
Eating them straight away, a soft poison erodes a world formed in the image of trauma as new neural pathways lead me away from myself, and the unpredictable nature of things melts metal with waves of terror and euphoria.
The curled apple tree extends a hand to me, the hand that took more years to form. I clasp it and anchor myself, made up of only sensations, as the rhubarb leaves gnarl. The clouds make fractal patterns as flies and bees move in lines and squares, their image dragging behind.
Standing at the gate, time concentrates itself and I am at once younger and present and witnessing the future. In this concentration, with the last of the sun hitting the down of the thistles, I feel an expansion, of always being here.
Butterflies rest on a hot corrugated roof while others fly by with noisy wings, their colour disappearing as they join together in a black velvet page.