Pip
Permanently imprisoned, Peter
The generation aren’t suffering anxiety
They are trapped as Peter Pan
With the ever increasing house prices, the lack of good jobs, the inability to form relationships.
We left our kids stuck, never able to grow up, so they rot, became more unfulfilled.
Imprisoned as a child.

Lack of hope, regression into computer games,
Fake achievement, never seeing a friend.
Trapped at mom and daddy's, enjoying a house price rise and a pension.
Knowing on an Asda salary their best hope of owning a house
Is to mortgage themselves to the point coffee is too much.
A holiday a dream, travel done after uni, not later.
And retirement at 75, ready for a care home.

Odd winner getting graduate jobs and escaping as Wendy birds.
If that was your life, wouldn’t you be depressed?
Score.
On PIP.

They finally get a house — mom and dad die, if they avoid a care home.
The American dream at 65 — homeowners, no hard work.
But not killing yourself before mom and dad
With ****, drink, or a rope.
Even a car, boy to see his friends — with insurance is too much to ask unless mom and dad help.
Three years at university — that being out on license.

Mom and dad need a care home, it will all be taken away.
Ironically being orphaned at 40 is winning.
Take another spliff, try to not look forward.
You will lose your PIP, have your last bit of freedom taken.

Oliver's son is still asleep on the sofa.

The only way to get a house
Is to get a baby when you’re not ready.
Hope the state gives you one.
Enjoy the poetry.
This generation doesn’t have Charles Dickens.
The beauty being made into delicate snowflakes,
To be crushed under Jackboots of a failed system.

Only the old work-from-home people don’t have to worry about the snow.
You don’t get a waterproof house as you walk to work.
Child unable to build even a snowman, let alone a life,
While mom can’t see beauty in a snowflake.
From their house, tax you to pay for their pension.
To envy mom's frozen tears, leaving no trail to tell of the suffering.

Of course PIP is gone.
Your low wage is the old greatness gift.
If you get a snow shovel, food, you might make your own path.
But I’ve Deliveroo food.
I don’t want to go out there in my boots.
I will catch a cold or COVID.
It’s number 9.
Close the gate behind you.

You step off the path — 3 stars.
Think about that.
I enjoy my meal.
Don’t ask for more.
Oliver sings and dances on West End now.
No dancing in my conscience for you asking for more, sir.

Bing bing — one delivery of gruel.
Get walking.
Time for sale.
Don’t eat my gruel.
Better be warm and delivered with a smile.
A second 3 star — you are on the sofa.
Hope mom got nice house.

Good news — it’s Oliver’s house.
Wasn’t he fortunate to inherit so much.
Now Charles wears a crown,
Doesn’t use a weapon of pen and ink.

No how dare u ask me for more
I lost my free tv license I will have u know
God snowflakes how much is the wagu today
Not frozen wagu I don’t like to defrost
How was job search son ? Find anything?
Well you’re only young me at 36

black spores on the mildewed walls
peeling over the wood
rot that even the vultures shun
it grows in cracks and in dark places.

the disease sticks its spiny fingers
down your throat, so you can’t
scream…
silence, silence, it wants
silence.
it wants
absence,
no self left to 𝘣𝘦.

outside, it has been night for years
babes born bawling, not knowing
what stars, moon, sky, sun used to
look like, nothing but the concrete
sea.

and yet, though Purity
has her headstone with the
rest, though there are no longer
prayers
to be blessed
there is good,
there is GOD in this
God-forsaken world,
there is GOOD
there is GOD—
you.

nothing but a scrap
of paper from a make-up catalog
saying,
“Real Flawless™”

but here i am,
unable to stop
thinking
about what it markets to me
what it asks of me
what it stipulates to be
true.

“Real Flawless”

modern day doublethink:
“my body is mine but
Yours
to look at and
Yours
to judge and so i shape it
to the eye that is
Yours—
i am proud though i make myself
small”

“Real Flawless”

mandatory affirmations, prayers more like,
repeat repeat repeat
how much i love myself even
as i consume comparisons
and then calculate the calories.

“Real Flawless”

the only reason
beauty is pain is
because it tears
us in two.

a slap on the wrist;
unguided hand rolls a fist –
knocks back the favour.

i press the button, nothing, shake
it, nothing still, press and hold, nothing,
nothing but black screen, try again,
plug it in—where’s my plug?
no plug, no plug, it’s gone and
all that’s left is the darkness…how will
they know? how will they know i’m alive
and i care? how will they survive if I
cannot reply 24/7, 400 days a year? how will
they know i exist and i matter if i cannot remind
them, remind in a buzz and a banner,
remind them that i am still here? just a
few hours but in those few hours i will cease
to exist because i do not exist unless you
see me.

it’s the sound of a city if everyone died,
as empty as pity in pitiless eyes.

could you imagine what it’s like to not imagine?
to feel a feeling, before it ever happened?
to tell a breeze from a beast, waiting in the cabin?
to conclusively deny the myth of the dragon?

could you ever really know the false from the true –
having lived so little in a world so new?
could you live with love, when all you have is you?
could you assure the blind that the sky is blue?

could you split the atom, and fill the void –
with a hate so violent you were meant to avoid?
could you find your peace, amidst a frenzy on steroids?
could you smother the fire with which you toyed?

could there ever be a time you’d know for sure –
if you should let go, or endure… a bit more?
could you think for yourself, with thoughts obscure?
would you dare to tell your child - ‘you’d better mature’?

i saw a half-dead man
at the butcher shop;
he ordered half a kilo chicken,
with half a voice;
his eyes, bloodshot,
sliced open like
the chicken’s clucking throat,  
and surveyed the butcher’s knife
for traces of humanity:
i don’t presume he found any.

the butcher verbalized an
unofficial bill of transaction:
the man paid with a 100,
and a 50 -
he was offered a 20 in return
by the butcher, who pressed
a ****** fingerprint on the note,
at the denomination.

the man reached for it…
but retracted halfway,
and said,
‘keep the change’.

i see flaws everywhere:

the skewed clock on the plastered wall;
the faces flashing past the curtain call;
the faithless creed of heathens, and sleazeballs;
the smiles that hide the symptoms of withdrawal;

i see laws bent out of shape:

the policemen advantaging off exposed women;
the two-faced lawyers in courts, who summon -
the men questioned of their dignity, and religion;
the reporters come drooling, for a big fat commission.  

i seek help, in vain:

the therapists diagnose me for a cerebral disorder;
they fail to put their words in the right order -
to put me at ease in the right frame of mind, so -
i accept my flaws under a contract, signed.

the phone - it calls:
my impulse crawls
back to the moment ‘twas
mighty, and strong;

the tv on the drywall -
knows how to stall -
my mind from its prime;
my body from a shawl --

i feel my palms
so cold - and remote:  
the channel shows
a woman in a fur coat;
she looks so sad -
with all she has;
she quits on love,
doesn’t leave a note.

i turn to music;
tune to the rhymes -
my sorrows of the day;
i buy some time:
debt looms over -
menacing, by the day;
volume seeks heed -
i cannot pay.

done for the day,
i put the phone down;  
the screens go dark -
make me look like a clown.
i cannot keep tabs on
on all my regrets, so -
i force the ******* laptop
to shut down.