House swap

We once swapped lives
Country to city
Young wild loud country calls
Squashed into a box amongst all other boxes
The fear in my mothers eyes
When we would call and shout
Like we did at home
The shame
It was a freedom
That like I had not known
At five years old
With an annoying brother and a foetus
To return to the loud.
The laughs and the distance
No one for miles!
No one I cared about
But I didn't care about the city folk
living on the other side of the wall
And yet I stayed silent
Stayed still
Petrified in my bed
Still listening to them
The others
On the side of the wall
With their lives so selfishly private
I would tell them everything about mine
But they said nothing
Peering over gates,
Staring into windows
Searching for the sounds
The bodies that they bring
To be pulled back
By the shamed mothers hand
"don't stare!"
Stare at what?
They were never there.