Hours before, a stones throw twixt the harbour, I stated with great emphasis, ‘I’m not scared because I always know when to go’.

That’s why I didn’t care that I’d be the only one there.

I didn’t hope or dream.

I’ve chosen to live the moment I’m in.

Senses sated by food and mild inebriates, I offered the third, ‘Come carol singing at the bottom of the hill’. They declined.

Double coat, no scarf, no hat. I carried gloves.

The sea air carried warmth.

Planets twinkled.

Giant decorations pinned to harbour walls once daytime skeletons, stark against stone, came to life at night. Bauble, star topped tree. Father Christmas’s gluttonous face.

Immediately drawn by the first carol and the bright smiling woman who gently thrust her her song book in welcome.

The choir led songs of returning to fathers, donkeys and Myrrh. Of nights so silent they drew joy to earth. And of loving us all so much he sacrificed one life to save lives.

My voice grew in confidence as I sang beside my equally deeply throated new pal. We shared giggles when the soprano lead hit notes we couldn’t see. And in between, my new pal introduced me to a chatty friend of her mothers and his partner.

This Geordie asked me where I was from. ‘Bristol’ I replied. He smile full, ‘I hear Bristol and Newcastle are the best cities right now!’ He’d recently returned after four years working in Texas, ’I was there during Trumps heyday. Frightening. I saw friendships and families broken. I couldn’t believe what was happening.’ I suppressed my sadness that he didn’t know just how powerful violent lies were.

I followed the torch carrying crowd twixt a tall white walled court.

The acoustics merged our voices sweetly, filling our souls and raising genuine smiles. When the final note ebbed an impetuous child hooted their delight.

The carol’s warmth dispersed as we ambled into the next port. A decrepit space that reeked of better days. Boarded windows, bins, no lighting. It was in this atmosphere that my welcoming singing pal introduced me once more.

I’m not a fan of the goatee. There is something unnerving about a carved strong chin.

He asked first where I was from. And at first he accepted Bristol, then demanded more, ‘Where exactly?’ he forced as I attempted to draw attention back to singing. I felt my new pal stiffen.

He leaned forward, ‘I used to live in St Paul’s’ he asserts. He points his intrusive goatee confidently after stating the location of the nationally renowned 80’s uprising. I didn’t grow in a black ghetto. The one I knew was white. But later in life I briefly lived in a house with white friends. A house I fled after a white x-boyfriend broke in and I woke to find him standing over me. The flare of his nostrils and bleak glare were not dissimilar to what I’m seeing here.

I willed him to stop killing my buzz but his target had locked. No longer interested in singing. I was all he could see.

He spoke of carnival. A church I didn’t know because I stopped believing when I realised the bible was written by men who led with violence and obedience, not love. Men who didn’t believe heaven could ever exist on earth.

The next carol started up.

My new pal thrust her carol sheet between us.

He leaned across.

‘Easton is really rough though isn’t it. Lots of gangs there. Lots of stabbings’.

I looked directly into his goatee face to state, ’There are gangs everywhere. Like up north. Leeds. Liverpool. Manchester’. Places where a fast life relieves children of poverty’s abuse.

He shrank. He knew I wasn’t wrong. And I knew he’d expressed his vision of my world.

I always know when to go.

The far away twinkles guided me away from fake and up towards stars. Christian Christmas spirit long gone.

I woke to a dream of fight.

I was being hunted. The moon lit my path as I sprinted lithely through woodland and over grass. The dream rewound. I ran another route down. And another. And another. Each route changed. Each time I got away.

Violence lives in the oft relayed wistful histories of throne games. Rampaging men set on rape and pillage. Land stolen with violence and held with threat. Of wealth amassed on death.

I wake. Heartbeat raised. Tension staking me. Fury: I was forced to see violence while my dial was set to love.

I always know when to go but I also know I won’t curb my curiosity, I won’t hide and I won’t disappear. I will speak of the atrocities upheld by men who seek control through violence.

MC James

Emerging writer utilising whichever medium fits the message (poetry, prose, stage or screenplay). As the child of Jamaican Windrush expats, Marie writes about identity and home – searching for it, finding it, running from it, losing it, or fighting for it. Marie builds on a twenty year career as a media Producer.

Marie has been a finalist in The Writers Lab (UK & Ireland) and The Young Vic ‘Taking Black Writers Seriously’, hosted by Kwame Kwei-Armah, and been shortlisted for Sundance Screenlab. Marie currently lives in Bristol, UK where she hosts Bristol’s new quarterly literary event, This Is Not A Bookclub.