Time expires
I’m just sitting here waiting to die
There’s not much else, no reason why
I should get up every day
Just wasting away
In the place that should have been ours
Not mine
Not my one-room prison cell
I tried doing seven to five
That lifestyle saw my health nosedive
Endless days, bored with menial tasks
Saying yes to food any time someone asks
My clothes start hurting me
Bursting out, desperate to be free
From the cages I’m in
Morale is straight in the bin
Don’t work well with others
When they close ranks like quintuplet brothers
Training kicks in, I know what to do
And how to do it, I’ve ran a few
Hundred miles in a green baggy suit
At least this time I won’t be wearing boots
The first one is hard, pain searing in my lower back
Chest heaving, hard breathing, is this a heart attack?!
It’s all good, cos I felt this before
Back in my army days, I know the score
Stop, stretch more, must not have done it right
Then walk a bit til it’s alright
To start running more til the pain
Stops me, Dammit! Stretch again
I made it, the first one is the hardest
Just got to be determined and I’ll get past this
That’s what I told myself the next two runs
And by the end I’m fucked, my back is done
I couldn’t walk, stand, sleep or move
Went to the docs and wait for drugs to soothe
The agony that has me beat
All of that shit I wish I didn’t eat
She said I was down
Said I was depressed
Long before the injury
I didn’t listen
I work for the rest of the summer
Come September, I have to bum her
Out cos I can’t take no more
Of the pain, it’s got me on the floor
Work let me sneak off to stretch it out when it gets bad
But work piles up all the time I’m away
No let off
No way to say ‘Can somebody take some of this?’
‘What we paying you for? You take the piss!’
Stuck at home, indoors, while she’s at work
I sort out benefits, pay half, don’t wanna jerk
Her around, have her be like a mum
I pay my way, wait for the day to come
That I’m back on my feet
Not just some lump of meat
Days turn into months
Always do
I get bad days
Some not so much
The ‘Good’ makes things
So much worse
She looks at me like I’m lying
Like I want to be broken
Doesn’t get that this fucking hurts
And I’m not fucking joking
It goes on like this, docs, physio, hospital
Spinal injections that don’t work at all
Pain keeps getting worse, but the drugs
Dull everything and I can tell it bugs
Her that I’m at home
She doesn’t get time to be all alone
“You’re here every day” she says, all angry
“Where should I go?” I ask, “Just fucking tell me!”
I should have seen her drift away
But can’t see past the pain that’s in the way
Of everything life has to offer
The live we shared is gone, she’s found another
To then add heartbreak to the pain I felt
Was too much, wanted to kill myself
Seriously
Finally
Finality
Doc puts me on diazepam, just dopes me up
Cos she’s still here, though we are broken up
Seven weeks of hell that even through
The fog of drugs I’m on I feel it too
We try to talk it out
Cry it out
Just want to work it out
But in my broken heart I knew
Knew it was done for good
That was three and a half years ago
Since then, time passes far too slow
Soul-searching brings me an answer
That I don’t like, don’t have the guts
For suicide. Ain’t smoked since Mum got cancer
I start again to bring about
The end faster than it would without
Six and a half years off the cigs
Up in smoke now to help me fix
The problem of how to get this
Over and done with sooner
Don’t want to be here
Life’s been a loser
No idea if there’s an afterlife
Or if I’ll get to see
My Mum, my Grandparents
And the rest of the family
Each day is just a fucked up state
Of trying not to go insane
If it wasn’t for the cat, I would have stopped this before now
But I worry what would she be like
Without me
Would it break her heart?
Would she get over me?
Would she be cared for?
I might not see.
Maybe there isn’t a thing, but darkness
No way to keep touch with the women you’ve left
Days get shorter
Dark dreams haunt me more
In the slivers of sleep I can manage
Waking time is none better
When heart flutters and jumps
When I move in the smallest amount
Made my choice long ago
Sit still and say nothing
And just let it come
To me whenever it wants
Cos I’d welcome death now
My life’s been such a waste
I’m only taking up more space
Seeing Mark lying there dying
And wanting more life just
Made me feel a total disgrace
We spoke. I told him, “We all owe a death
It’s just you that has to do this first.”
He smiled at me like he got it
And winced with the pain of the cancer that’s got this boy cursed
Nineteen is too young to be taking stock
Of the ‘life’ that you’ve lived
Just out the blocks
With so much more of himself to give.
It took Mark in September
I wasn’t there to see it
I’m glad he waited til I’d been to go
Don’t really know how much I meant
To him, he was too quiet, never let
Those emotions show
I can’t reconcile his death with how I feel
I stayed. He went. It’s totally fucked
But neither of us has had the luck
That would have meant a good life
Or average one either.
Just to be given the chance to find out
What it means, maybe leave something of ourselves behind
I know I won’t leave anything of me behind cos there’s nothing left of me now.
Everything that was me has been replaced by a shapeless lump
Nobody needs or wants anymore
I least of all.
