I’m fighting against nature and nature is winning
and that’s as it should be, not some hollow victory
so I’ll be back next year to slaughter your children.

These are the thoughts that go through my head
as I’m pulling ragwort on the Sabbath.

I’m spending my weekdays putting down roots
and spending my weekends tearing them up again.
I see you, old neighbour, gossiping and judging
all I’m uprooting and nothing I’m planting.

These are the thoughts that go through my head
as I’m pulling ragwort on the Sabbath

I fell into a century long sleep
and woke up at the top of the world.
Found a road that leads everywhere and nowhere at once
where the sea and the sky are a sucker punch.
I tried to leave myself in the city
but the fucker followed me to Stornoway.
I dumped him in a shieling but he’s stubbornly alive.
I still lose days to email while my kids make knives.

They are something I am not.
I am not yet quite sure what
but it gives me hope.

These are the thoughts that go through my head
as I’m pulling ragwort on the Sabbath.

These are the things that go through my head...
It might sound like defiance but I’m often on your side.
Some weeks it’s the only day I feel alive
in this madness,
this sadness,
this not completing anything and not allowed to stop,
the constant pulling up of roots while never planting crops.

I am a murderer
wanting something to survive
on the Sabbath.