Please note: this piece contains strong language
It’s your life.
It’s your childhood house, your village, your old friends, and your current friends.
If you’re lucky, they’re the same people.
It’s that one club in the town you grew up in.
It’s your favourite pub.
It’s the people you cried over and the people you cried with
and the people who make you laugh so hard.
The worst people and the best you’ll ever meet.
It’s a small-town mentality.
It’s the smartest people you know.
It’s unwelcoming and it’s so, so warm.
It’s always fucking freezing.
You could have it a lot worse.
You could have it better.
Everyone has it worse and everyone has it better.
You’re working class, you’re middle class
you’re lucky and you’re not.
You don’t miss it at all.
You miss the hills all the time.
You hate hill-walking.
It’s every embarrassment, every laugh,
every tear, every achievement,
every Saturday night and every kiss you ever had
all rolled into one.
It’s so untouched by the outside world
but it is everywhere you go.
It made you and you can’t throw that away.
You made a tiny part of it, so it can’t throw you away.
Rip it apart, slag to pieces,
but you hold those pieces tight in your hand
and you keep them.
You don’t have to let go of home
and you don’t have to move back.