NUMB

Once upon a time I was numb to these sensations, these alarm bells resonating throughout my body at a cellular or perhaps microbial level.

A feeling that hundreds if not thousands of microscopic lives are dying each minute I spend within the centre of a town or a city with its thick polluted air suffocating me and the dead lifeless atmosphere where healthy microbes and bacteria cannot thrive.

My senses desperately seek some kind of connection in a deserted landscape of concrete and foreign noises. Shells of people pass me by deeply cultivated into the dead environment. They are either listening to loud music, smoking, heads down focused upon their latest social media feed and it all appears to be distractions from the painful reality we must all face should we choose to engage with our sleeping instincts.

Walking through the town centre my rewilded nature ran rampant, fight or flight heavily dictating the way I observed and moved with urgency to finish what I had to do and return to green landscapes. Each second breathing the stagnant air, my clarity faded and I could feel my body fighting the invasion of abnormal sounds, smells and bad cultures. A part of me wanted to switch off, to ignore, to become like everyone else and wander through this dense fog of disconnect without the urgency of panic or to hide from my internal and external cultures and microbes screaming at me to leave.

I refuse to shut down and I refuse to ignore the terrifying sensation that our industrial civilisation triggers throughout every cell in my being. Each time I must face the silent screams of my internal universe it reminds me of the reason why I live the way that I do and affirms the path of change I wish to walk upon.