Where I Tread, by Henry Bladon

Map of Motherhood in Apt. 1, by Katherine Tanner Silverman (USA) 2024

Where I Tread
 
I move in the language of ache,
through a place filled with the smell of colours –
through a syntax of pauses, of patience, of rocking long enough
for calm to arrive.
 
The apartment learns me just as I learn it.
Spaces widen and close every day.
Not just an address – but rooms full of 
the soft repetition of need.
 
Talking and eating and feeding and moving,
moments arrive without warning. 
Pelvic fizzing spreading.
Weeping and whirling and calling – sound testing the walls, 
finding a place to rest.
 
Time in the white room, 
with the ache of the spine,
when the tiles feel colder 
than the rest of the world –
holding my breath, wanting to scream,
as the mirror asks questions I don’t want to hear.
 
Footsteps, the squint of red eyes,
the ache of bended knee.
Bending, 
–to the low cupboards,
–to the floor,
–to the small gravity of another body.
 
In the hallway. 
I imagine sleep
as a place I once lived.
 
Where I tread – I do so carefully – and the space answers,
opening itself around us, holding what we will become.
 
Henry Bladon
 
This poem and the artwork were previously published in an essay. Kriegler-Wenk Z, Green J. Psychogeography as embodied connection to place. AMA J Ethics. 2025;27(6):E402-408 

Author's note: "With grateful thanks to the artist for her permission to use this piece."
 
Henry is a poet, writer and mental health essayist based in Somerset in the UK. His work has appeared in many places, including The Ekphrastic Review.