The city
Where a young girl dons a white painted face
Gothic and scary
Black boots and lace

The city
Where tramps drink in doorways
Cider and whiskey
Spreading it four ways

The city
Where black cabs wait in queues
And the drivers laugh and joke
While debating the news

The city
Where the Chinese have their town
Beautifully eastern archway
Leads to restaurants where people sit down

The city
Where the town hall looks imperious
As the suited and important workers
Mill around looking serious

The city
Where boys meet different boys
The girls meet different girls
All beautiful and full of noise

The city
Where the pubs are big and bold
Wine bars are full of lawyers
And casinos offer you gold

The city
A place I love to go to
It’s affluent while still historic
The place where everyone knows you

A knock at the door
And my friend answers
The ******* the doorstep simply blurts out
Can you tell Ian his pet shops flooded
My friend politely says tell him yourself
And she repeats it again
This time more manic
Can you tell Ian his pet shops flooded
So my fiend says again
Very politely I might add
She’ll have to tell him herself and again
Can you tell Ian his pet shops flooded
So he slams the door in her face
True story

At school I was a fool
Just a pencil on a stool
I didn’t carry my book
Couldn’t be arsed to look
And it was boring
Boring
Boring
The teacher had us snoring
So at school I was the fool

At school I was the dreamer
The thinker and the schemer
Never wrote stuff down
To busy looking around
And it was tiring
Tiring
Tiring
The teacher was close to expiring
So at school I was the dreamer

At school I was the fighter
The survivor and the nail biter
Always jumping around like a flea
ADHD from the age of three
And it was hard
Hard
Hard
The teacher made us mentally scarred
So at school I was the fighter

In someways I enjoyed it the best
All bouncy and full of zest
No worries or feelings of malaise
Just the daily grind
Of our school days

We were young and eager
The curious believer
A house full of trees
Green like the peas
So they said

They told us he was a ******
Hanging gnomes from the gutter
So we had to take a look
We were young, who gives a ****
At that age

And there he was climbing up
On a ladder clutching a cup
With a beard all long and grey
Like the clouds on a rainy day
Hanging up his gnomes

By god they were ugly things
What a nightmare always brings
Gnarled faces and twisted cheeks
A horizontal chorus line of freaks
Or were they

Maybe life had given him a kick
Like a mallet hitting a brick
A depression that never ends
Porcelain figures his only friends
But how were we to know

We felt scared and also sad
As we wondered why he was mad
Watching a detachment from the chain
Of the normal working brain
Living alone in the house with gnomes

I’m bored of going out
People make me shout
I just love the daytime tv
A Greggs breakfast will do for me

It’s Eastenders night tonight
I hoping there'll be a fight
Or an affair that ends in a flurry
I’ll view it while eating a curry

Whilst pondering a thriller
I check myself in the mirror
And wonder why I’m fat
How has it come to that

It’s all since my mothers death
When the alcohol stopped her breath
Cause my father ran off with a ****
After he dumped us from his heart

Nighttime is when I start the tears
I’ve being doing this for years
I punch myself in the face
Look at me I’m a disgrace

No one gives a **** about me
I’m a nobody is all they see
Sod it a cake will make me feel good
Instead of sleeping as I normally would

I hate being a couch potato
But it’s really all I know
I dream of it every single day
To be a dancer in the royal ballet

It’s late and I really need to sleep
Not curled up in a flabby slumped heap
But this film has got me by the hook
Think ill sit down and have a little look

I see their innocence slipping
As they walk merrily over to school
And it upsets me how their growing
But I know that’s the golden rule
It was only yesterday that I could hold them
And swing them in my arms
Now if I try to lift them
My body sounds a hundred alarms
They believe their American or rappers
And they do nothing more than fight
I remember when they’d both lie together
Lost in each others sight
God only knows what the future holds
Will they still respect me when I’m over the hill
Or will they put me a sweet smelling home
Sat in a chair all perfectly still.

I woke up this morning to a very different day
The sun up in the sky had left and gone away
Birds were no longer singing outside in the trees
I suddenly felt tearful as I dropped to my knees

Gone was my yawn and waking morning sigh
A smile seemed non existent so I didn’t even try
I never saw it coming and couldn’t even prepare
For the change in my head what was lying there.
.
Shivers ran up and down like the winter frost
As I swam frantically in the ocean of the lost
It made me sad and devoid of all my feeling
So I looked up and just studied the celling.

The cosy mattress now became my new home
My stagnant imprint embedded into its foam
It ****** me down into its spongy bowels
I folded myself over like warm woolly towels.

I needed to rise and slap on my happy face
So I could wade deceivingly at a nice calm pace
I worried about the state of my humanity
Scared of bordering on the edges of insanity.

I debated whether to over eat or get blind drunk
Whether to sleep or smoke some bad skunk
But I slowly curled up into a ball as feared
On the day my mind disappeared.