As the sun came down, kissing Victoria Dock before sucking the colour from the concrete and iron, shifting the shapes in the cranes, sending fire across the dusk sky.
The light creeps around the structures of the cranes, mimicking the bass beneath my feet and smoke blurring reality in the clubs of Soho, behind Canary Wharf. I do not yearn to be there. I don’t need the rush. The theatre marquees, the escapism of a show, the relentless contactless spending. None of it calls to the silence in my mind.
Though there are others in my periphery, they do not intrude in this moment.
My moment.
Uncaged, uninhibited. Enough.
The emptiness of tomorrow and the other days that come before the new semester would normally intimidate. My mind is rarely a place I can inhabit whilst standing still.
A bowl of cereal, a banana and a jacket potato lead the way. Life has slowed to a pace that feels manageable, realistic, tender and grounded.
I am aware of the monster in the corner of my mind, soon to return to the real world after hibernation.
With every controlled exhale that promises peace, it seems to double in size.
It shatters logic, defies coping mechanisms, and takes with it every ounce of control.
But I fight back. With forces previously unknown to me, seemingly appearing from nowhere, yet deep within. I can hold my own, just about and it surprises me every time. Boundaries, skills and bare-faced survival change the landscape completely.
The monster was never the problem. It was my perception of it. It is not something that needs to consume me. It is a reminder of the past, who, what and where I once was.
Colin Cushion 
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