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Today my new day job looked at my heart and slavered.

I wanted employment that would not stalk me home. And yet, here I am, in a corner, writing about it, my organs scrunched up.

These surroundings are beautiful. I am in my conservatory. Over there blinding sunlight drains from the cupped edges of clouds. The air is spicy with smoke from a bonfire; wood ash drifts like cherry blossom. A robin sings. The trees are motionless, reaching out from a horizon-blue sky. Physically I am purged, drying out as I am in the wake of a flu that swept through me like a tempest. And when I drive into town, through tunnels of glistening leaves, I can see that this evening the world is alive.

And yet, I remember that feeling, when, as I inhaled, everything tightened and then, like a broken mirror,

popped into shards,

each one rushing towards my heart.
And I remember how similar pulses of pain would often come whenever my old job took another bite from my insides.
And so, this time, it takes over a day for me to feel safe.

But now it is a day later, and my job is once more grazing on greener things, life whose fruit is freely given so that all may grow.

Maybe it was my fault, with this new job; maybe I led it on. Maybe past trauma has made me so tender that even a look from this job leaves a mark.
But I'm watching it.