Nothing's left but it's alright

Have a voice
Give an opinion
Express yourself
Lay yourself bare

I'll tell you a story of a boy
His family are farmers - conservatives
At the bottom of the lane, the pub used to burn a cross on bonfire night. It held the letters KWW - Keep Waterside White
His Grandma is agoraphobic, xenophobic and racist who told him in no uncertain terms not to marry a black girl
Before he passed away, his grandad would shoot at people searching for magic mushrooms on their land
His father liked Thatcher, criticised the miners and the unions and was a casual homophobe
His mother judges women by appearance and thinks Nigel Farage is a decent bloke. Her place is in the home.
His brother works for the police
His sister rides horses
One uncle is a millionaire and CEO
The other believes that mental illness does not exist and its treatment is dangerous
The boy is christened, confirmed, went to an all white, Christian primary school and predominantly white, Christian secondary school.
He left secondary school and college with no qualifications through the arts. Only the important subjects.

There is another story about this boy but for now we will look only at these facts.

It may create an image in your mind

It would be easy to condemn this story
Sure enough it was condemned
By those who held the moral right
Opinions stronger than people
The boy grew fearful of people
Tried to hide his story
Became silent
Shut off from the world
Thought of the ways he could end the pain
Sought to become a different person
To deny his past
Outwardly this worked
Inwardly...

People believed the moral of the story was that he had overcome
They missed the point

Inwardly... Sometimes, the majority ... Can feel like the minority

If I said all of that, could I still express myself?
Would you listen?
Or would I be condemned?

Who is this man dressed in a box who comes to me at night to unwrap and unravel the trappings of his day?
His manner is pleasant. He is welcomed here.
But why does he come this distance to offer me notification of such things?

Things like the moon and stars that are shining. I can see the stars. I know they shine. They are beautiful and I share his love for them.
He will ask me why they shine on us both when we traverse such distant paths. I answer that I do not know, we each have our path. His is by the sea and mine the fire.

Sometimes he offers to help me rebuild this fire of mine. Or at least to praise me for continuing to stoke it's flames. For the warmth it creates. With my calm. My logic.

Then he checks on the moon and the stars and asks me if they moved. But our paths remain.

Other days he will share his tales of the sea. Show me his sketches of birds made of octopus ink. How the Dolphins played. The words he passed to the sirens. And the things he would do if I were his siren!! "My fire would burn if you did that!!" We laugh. He asks if the stars moved. I wish to answer... Alas I cannot control the stars. He jokes once more about the sirens and passes out to sea...To see.

All at sea.

His deep, calm sea.

Sometimes he just waits.

He is quiet, but the conversation and questions hang all around him like stars. I wish to ask, but know I have no answers. I maintain my fire. So he waits.

Until

'You are... Special... Little star
Your fire has shone on me and lit my core in ways you can never know. Yet I fear that this fire is not for me. I fear that without my own fire ...'

He turns and walks away...

'It's hard to build a fire at sea. When you sleep, I can't hear you breathing...
Because you aren't there.

Do you think tomorrow the stars will move?'

I wish upon a star that I had an answer.

Decisions decisions

The butcher chose to remove the tail first today

He was a teller of tails.

He once told of a tail so long that he had to chop it with a French curving blade

The one he bought from Trevor down by the market.



Next the butcher decided to remove the left ventricle

"My mother always said I should have been a surgeon" he lamented

but she was a heartless old cow,

unlike this old cow.

He removed the ventricle.



Next came it's walking boots

Leather boots... Ironic

These boots were made for walking,

but where to?

Away... Just away.



Finally he decided to take the cows head,

and in its eyes he saw his reflection,

covered in blood,

tired,

rough.

Doing things some people would detest him for.

He looked at that man and thought to himself

"Is this what I want to be?

Is this all that I am?"

The question hung in the air with the smell of raw beef.

And he smiled and said,

"This is what I am. I'm happy with this."

And he hung the meat in the window to show his craft.

Don't judge

Don't begrudge

Help them take the first step



For the first time ever I had to sign on.



So I got to the Citizens Advice Bureau early.

It's still closed,

And people are sat on the step outside.

There's a middle aged bloke with a walking stick.

There's a foreign guy with his kid.

There's a guy who looks rough as **** who I'd probably cross the street from on a night out.

All sat on the step.

We're a single mum away from the perfect stereotype,

But I'm in the mix.



I'm not judging!

I understand the issues these people go through.

The people on the step.

I put my time and energy into trying to help-

I hate people who judge,

But I'm not one of them.



A pretty girl walks past dressed in a business suit.

She's cute.

Is she judging me for being on the step?

Don't judge me!

I'm one of you!

I work!

I'm not one of them!

I'm not normally on the step!



I recoil into myself at these thoughts.

I glance around apologetically at these people as if they heard me.

I look at the faces,

They seem to blank me.

I feel like they know,

Like they're looking at me thinking -

"Yeah, you don't judge do you?"

"This is life on the step.

We don't want to be here either,

We don't want a do-gooder being a hero,

We want to do it for ourselves,

But here we are,

On the step,

And you're one of us."



"Welcome to the step!"

There's a quiet tick tick

Tick tock

There's a quiet sound of cars in the distance

The air is warm but there's a slight breeze through the window that is refreshingly cooling

I can feel it on my thigh

I've got one eye closed as I squint at my phone and write this poem

Is it a poem? What is a poem?

I feel like a fake
A plastic poet
Making it up as he goes along
Wanting to write a good poem instead of just writing ...

Anything

What's happening now?

I tried to write a poem about my Dad being a conservative, about coming from a farming family, and about doing things rather than talking about them.

I just rolled over on my couch

I don't always think about what I'm doing
I like to think I'm doing something
Sometimes I'm just trying to do the right thing
Sometimes I'm just trying to be seen to do the right thing
Sometimes I just want to indulge myself in the profits of my labour

Money

I'm skint
I'm not skint
I could be skint if things go a certain way in the near future
I'm scared of being skint
But I don't want to go back to doing the things that I was doing
I don't want to be dragged down again
****** in again
Institutionalised
I don't want to trust people and then get ******* over
I want to be free
To make my own decisions
And walk away if I don't like it

I wonder if Adele will call
I like Adele
She reminded me of my good points again
After Paula
Letting go
It scares me a bit to think whether I actually would have killed myself back then
No matter now - it seems so long ago
When I needed someone to make me feel good
It's inly been about six months
It's not long
I've changed a lot
I hope that it's for the best
At least I don't cry every day I'm without my kids now
At least Adele is my friend
Do I wish she was my girlfriend?
Or do I just like being respected and liked?

I like being liked
I think that's why I write
It's probably why I'm setting up my charity
It's definitely why I post what I'm doing on Facebook

I'm tired now
This poem is getting too long for the 3 mins
Is it a poem?
God knows
I need to sleep ***

Tick

Tock

Buzzzzzzzz...zzz..

Sat on a stationary train in Doncaster because the guy said my MOT would be done today. He said it would be done today or if he needed a part, he wouldn't start on the car so that I could use it tonight. But it wasn't ready tonight. And he didn't leave it until tomorrow. So tonight I'm on a train. Tomorrow I'll be driving a car. Today however, it's a train.

Just leaving Doncaster.

On a train. Not in a car. The car isn't ready until tomorrow. That's what the guy in the garage said. By noon at the latest. He's trustworthy right? I'm sure it will be ready. Sure. I won't be on a train tomorrow. No siree. I'll be in a car.

The lady just took my ticket.

I won't have to give anyone my ticket tomorrow. I'll be in a car. Not on a train. You don't need tickets in a car. You just drive it. Unless you like tickets. Then you could make tickets for your car and give yourself a ticket when you got in the car.

The trains horn just went off. It made me jump.

That wouldn't happen if I were in a car. I'd be in full control of the horn in a car.

I think I just found out why the horn sounded. A bunch of feathers just flew in through the window. RIP bird.

That might have happened if I were in a car. You can still **** birds in a car. But in a car I would have more of a sense of guilt. Being on a train isn't all bad I guess. Plus, if I were in a car and not, as is clearly the case, on a train, I wouldn't have been able to type out all my interesting anecdotal meandering as I chugged along.

That said, if you aren't enjoying reading all about this, might I suggest that you don't use Crown Motors?

My car is still there.

Not here.

I'm on a train.

That kid
That kid
That kid
Look at that kid
What the hells his problem?
Look at that kid
That kid

Why do you keep crying kid?
Why don't you stick up for yourself kid?
You should have grown out of this kid
Why did you **** yourself kid?
Why'd you do this to yourself kid?
You shouldn't dismiss yourself kid
It's weak to dismiss yourself kid

Why would you be sad kid?
Your life ain't exactly bad kid
You're obviously not a 'bad' kid
But you should appreciate what you had kid
YOUR family's still together kid
YOU'VE chances some kids never did
And the others are only kidding kid

You're a white kid
A middle class kid
Your parents work kid
You aren't 'round drugs kid
This is a good school kid
You're not a fool kid
You should be happy kid
You've no reason to be sad kid
Don't be wet kid
Man up kid

Why are you dressed like that kid?
Why's your hair so long kid?
Why are you wagging off kid?
Where's you work kid?
Why are your grades so bad kid?
That's not the target we expected
Your making us all look bad kid
You didn't understand kid?
Well, why didn't you ask kid?
Kid?
Kid?!

Because nobody listened.