The Lines

The Lines is a collection of poems for readers who enjoy themes of obsession, fantasy and isolation. Each poem combines with the others in the collection to form a story. This evocative anthology is about a nameless man who leaves Paris to return to London after breaking up with his lover. Travelling to Brighton by train each day, the man reflects about the woman he left behind and the life they once shared. Everything he sees and experiences while he travels the lines reminds him of her. Rain dripping down a carriage window; the smell of coffee as the porter wheels a trolley down the aisle; tall trees, leafless and grey, blurring past outside. As the story unfolds, the narrator morphs his own feelings into the imagined emotions of the people he encounters on his journey. Sometimes his fellow travellers weep the tears he cannot weep; sometimes they are hiding a secret, sometimes they die in his place.