Vertigo

Vertigo

A turn, a wobble, the world tilting in a silent polite swell—a teacup from the kitchen, spun by an unseen wind that whispers over the back of my neck.
I clutch the rail of the tram, its steel like a promise that the city will not tumble, that the bus will arrive on time, though my head sings with the sound of a hypnotic pendulum.

The east‑ward light is a jaundiced kiss on the street‑lamps, a pale London fog that sucks at the edges of my vision, hence I fall into the place where the bus stops, but the cupboards of my mind do not settle. They sway like the timber of an old Victorian drum—no wedding, no firework bright but a slow waltz of a half‑backed world.

I remember the seaside walk in Devon, the salt and the sharp sense of horizon— when a sudden squall turned the cliffs into a swirl of mist, and the gulls, their cries cut straight through the air, felt like a metronome, annoyed by the horizon, reminding me that uprightness is fragile.

The world, a grand carousel, keeps spinning, upon the hinge of a toothless clock, and every ragged second feels like a soup for the soul—rich, but heavy— because all I taste is the only sensation that can be named: vertigo.

I am all that is offered: the push of the wind, the sway of the earth, the good tea on the bench, a chance for a smile. It is a feeling that makes the bus stop a tiny colony of certainty, yet inside I know the London fog will never give up its lapping shape.
So I breathe out the greeblening, step upon the rail, and let the world turn again, a little faster, a little more British‑solitude, but at last, calm.