Coastal boy

I think as I'm growing up and preparing to leave home for next year I'm realising how much where I come from has shaped me, how its a part of who I am. And I can't help but think of everything that I'm leaving behind, the bridge me and my first love carved drawings into, the shitty little corner shop I buy my energy drinks from in summer, the ocean. At least the weather will be the same where I'm going. Even the grotty little streets have grown on me, the graffiti and the litter and the damaged front gardens and the old lady who's wheelchair bound but still smokes constantly outside her home, and the kids that play in front of their houses who I pass walking home from school. 

Everything here is damaged and grimy and I love it so so dearly, its part of me, its grown inside me and I think it'll stay. How weird it feels to be from somewhere. And when I move away and start to introduce myself to people I have one more thing about who I am at my very fundamentals besides my name. It hits me over and over, I have a name and I come from somewhere. I'm more of a person than I let myself believe. 

All this is to say I'm going to get a union Jack tattoo on my ass