July 24th 1997, and I still hate it
The thing that it left with me
A decaying piece of charred meat
That will never belong to me
Something I continue to abhor
I still can not accept as mine
The hatred should be at them
Because they took it away
Killed what was my life
Destroyed everything I knew
They ignited the flame
That devoured my flesh
Not knowing what happened
But the nightmare still remains
For three months I suffered
So much in this World
Seemed also to be happening
As I faced a hospital bed
Wet Wet Wet did a version of Yesterday
Princess Diana died that August
My partner rarely came to see me
I found myself using a wheelchair
Terrified by horrible dreams
Where they still came for me
Then came the time to go home
I feared about leaving the safety
Of a place full of caring nurses
But that day would arrive
Having to live with the shock
When I first saw what was done
Home, finding out she cheated
Slept with a family friend
Her reason was so simple
She didn't want to sleep
With the way I was disabled
Not able to accept the leg
So I drank, almost attempting suicide
Anything and everything I took
But it never blocked it out
Still she found other lovers
My children gave me reason
To keep on living each day
The writing became my therapy
Finding the release through words
Giving freedom to those feelings
Some I thought were forgotten
Still finding it harder to cope
It was not mine, take the leg away
So what did these years bring me?
Apart from refusing to want this scarred monster
That seems to be attached forever to my soul
A bitter memory etched in torment and pain
Each anniversary is a walk through Hell
Where everything was a ripple effect
If I had stayed home on that night
Then this would not be my fate
Part of me is in fear of that
For would this poet had been born?
Created from the flames of agony
To try to find himself in life
Partners have come and gone
Sanity was almost lost at times
where I dwelt in my own fantasy
Refusing to accept what was real
It cost me a treasured friendship
But I learnt the value of that lesson
For seven years I have not drank
But have suffered the edge of madness
I almost lost this woman, close to me now
She forgave the strangeness in my mind
Now she makes me stronger each day
But the Anniversary in Hell nevergoes away
copyright Chris Smith 2012 (Bearing a tortured soul)