I'm mad at you because you left me,
I still had lessons to learn which you didn't teach.
You left me when my wings were barely open
Or hardened by the sun.
You left me before I realised I had questions,
About life, about men.
You left me before I knew about grief,
Yet taught me it at the same time.
I didn't know who I was,
I wasn't the girl in the photograph anymore,
wrapped in the sanctuary of family and familiarity.
Now I was a girl who men would leave or deceive,
Now I was a girl running from the wolves
Always scared inside trying to wear shoes too big
With resources too small.

I painted you a picture, it was a Masai warrior,
I wanted you to be like him, strong, undefeated.
As a child i sat on your knee whilst you taught me ******* a lion-
"Put your arm down his throat and grab his tail,
then, whip him inside out.".... I believed you!
But you couldn't **** a lion could you?
When death came for you, you held his hand.
My painting was rejected from the sterile confines
Of intensive care, along with my scared mind.
I propped it on top of a cabinet and dreamt,
Dreamt that the bat who flew in and rested upon it
Was your soul coming to tell me you were still around.
But you weren't, were you.

I saw you in my dream as you descended the subway stairs,
I couldn't catch up, you turned and waved, I never saw you again.
You trapped me in a moment in time where I would always be,
Scrabbling a wall I cannot climb when the enemy approaches,
without your protection - child to adult with your last breath.
I wasn't ready to live life with a dagger in my heart.
I'm mad at you, you left me!

Nosey people annoy me
Pompous people bore me,
Pretentious people irritate me
Whilst drunk people irrigate me.
Opinionated people grate me,
Cheating people forsake me.
Sly people irk me
Lazy people shirk me.
Judgemental people cast me,
Bigoted people blast me.
Most people avoid me!

There was a small fly who flew in my ear,
All cosy and warm, with nothing to fear.
A harmless existence, though short on sun,
He beat his wings against my ear drum.
''Its in my ear!!'', I cried in shock,
Whilst those stood round began to mock.
ENOUGH of THIS, my new, near neighbour!
(The car key was ******,
in pain I cussed. . .)
But calm was restored with my makeshift sabre :)

I dreamt of running away today
I can't live this life and stay
Shackled to a block of ice
This life is nothing nice.

Who would know that a pause would lead to this,
One moment, when a second spoke volumes,
One moment that led to a world of possibilities,
Imagined at first but then becoming real.
It wasn't a planned out thing it just sort of crept up,
We noticed the similarities, the often shared thoughts
The reassuring touch.
I didn't know you but I knew you, if you know what I mean,
Some fated, spiritual, psychic link up had occurred to me,  it seems.
After a time we were daring to verbalise this 'thing',
We both agreed that it was there
Something we couldn't name.
What I came to realise was, every connection was a log,
The logs grew into a pile and began to stack right up.
The eyes meeting, a special smile, a knowing glance or word,
Became the petrol on the wooden pyre,  just waiting to be burned.
The summer came and we'd moved on to a braver riskier stance,
You kissed me for the first time,
I almost missed the chance to kiss you back,
My heart was pounding, so scared of being caught,
That was the moment when, the match came out of its box.
The next time we kissed it was long and slow and
The match was struck and the fire was ablaze.


Then I had a tragedy, the life changing event of death,
The sort that brings you down, to nothing that you were.
Shattering in its relationship to life as I knew it.
I still thought about you even then,
I thought the fire was sure to go out,
The momentum had been deflated,
But in my grief you still held my hand and listened.


For several months I was up and down but still you were there.
Suddenly you were in my thoughts in a far more intimate way.
We began to explore and found we shared explosive ideas
Of a sensual side we both knew and understood.
The depth of that feeling was the strongest I'd even known
So it inched a long until we'd planned, a consummation date.
We went away to the seaside, we walked and talked and laughed,
We ate together and played together until the night drew in.
The night was filled with pleasure, that lasted for hours at a time.
A time when I was yours and you were mine and, we both woke up together.
The day came when I had to leave and I realised that this could also be the end.
The tears I couldn't help pouring from my eyes at the thought of you not there.
I felt a profound sense of loss, like someone had taken away
The only thing that mattered to me in the cracked world I had made.


Was this it, was this the peak, was it now all downhill.
We'd never have the chance again to be this free and
The snatched moments we had before,
Could never really compensate, for that time down by the shore.
I spoke to you that night and heard the tears in your voice,
It made me cry again, I knew then I couldn't let you go
Not like that, not now, I realised I had fallen in love.
It's true it has not been the same since we came back,
but a deeper understanding stands
That this is not a throwaway thing,
that should be full of guilt and shame.
But life it is a joker, though seldom is it funny,
Everything has its price, it's what you're prepared to gamble.
I can only make that choice for me and yours will come with time,
The reason I say that is, because you're not really mine.

I saw a carving from Bethlehem that you had given my Nan,
She showed me a photograph of you, you were tall, with a golden tan.
The carving it was inscribed, 'with love from your brother Tom',
I knew my Nan had looked up to you, when all was said and done.

My Nan she was a little girl, when you were called away,
With her mother she waited eagerly for news, day, by day, by day.
In her eyes you were a hero who had gone off to the war,
Your smiling face, and uniform, were the last things that she saw.

She dreamt of the day that you would come back, striding through the gate,
she heard her mother pacing, though she didn't know your fate.
She heard her mother weeping but didn't want to know the reason why,
In her stomach she had a feeling that something was awry.

Then her mother sat her down and told her you were dead,
She told me she went dizzy, blood rushing to her head.
She told me she cried out your name, her heart it was pure broken,
The army sent a telegram, but it was really just a token.

You were just a boy of eighteen years when you were forced away,
I wonder how many mothers would cope if  their  sons left today.
They couldn't give you a grave, there was nothing left to bury,
You were blown to pieces in one hit, with bombs dropped in a flurry.

You only lasted for three months in your short, tough, army life,
My Nan died aged eighty-four, after a life of grief and strife,
She pined for you throughout those years and missed you everyday,
Her hero, her brother Tom, who left and went away.

She worried that when you fought, you longed for her and home
And worried that you were consumed with fear, and if that fear had grown.
She wondered if you had called out "Mum" and if your blood was swept by the tide,
how desperately she had wished, that she had been there, by your side.

The reason I know of you today, is that girl who became my Nan,
Who kept your memory alive as she always did back then,
I tell my sons about you Tom,  I hope it's the right thing to do,
And I hope that  they will love me as much, as my Nan had loved you.