If I Were A Shed
The shed, though now charmingly overgrown, no longer functions as a shed. But at one time it certainly did: brand new, polished, perfected, etc, purchased from the local garden centre after considerable debate over whether the light or dark wood would look best in the little square yard, (these things are important, you know), and fitted neatly into the back corner, brushed down, dusted off, admired momentarily by amateur handy-workers with crossed arms and self-satisfied smiles, and then promptly filled with all the bits and bobs, shovels and rakes, toolboxes and extra baggage that people tend to accumulate over the course of life. Now, it shows all of the markings one would expect to obtain in the precarious dance with time as it spins you clockwise, teasing the anti-clockwise (though never quite allowing it), stepping out, side, in, out, side, in, weaving you into its tapestry; you giddily twirl with it, thread becoming skin, skin becoming thread, while ignoring the faint prick of the needle, only noticing the aggregation of pain when you stop.
And perhaps I am too nostalgic for what the shed used to be. Back then it possessed all the qualities of excited youth, joyful and idealistic as it handed out its hours generously and clumsily dropped its seconds with every mindless giggle, admired by many, in comparison with the present, where it handles its accounts with increasing frugality and anxiously recoils at another’s gaze. It has good cause to do so for its image has certainly lost its shine, now overwhelmed by crawling ivy, which appears rather pretty at first glance, but when you look closer you can see where this deceptive plant has pried its way through the wood and descended in a spiral into the dark depths of the shed, reaching every corner, forming an intriguing but grossly complex muddy structure within which hides the critical whispering creatures and the knotted roots of unpicked trauma. I dare not even look further. My mother says it would make a great gin bar. (A laughable concept). Here she displays the general tendency of people to look for ways to use the distressed look for profitable means. I often wonder why everything must be made consumable but I keep it to myself. It is much easier to stay quiet even though I am all too aware of the fact that this shed may never be fully redeemed. Unfortunately, though you may attempt to mask the marks of time with aesthetic greenery, you cannot simply undo what has been done.