She said then, not unto herself,
“I cannot help you there.
If you want that then do it yourself.”
She hopped away without a care,
Her perfume hanging in the air.

I drank some coffee, had a smoke
(I’d given up, it made me choke)
And then I turned the TV on,
And watched the news, the boring news,
Many stories of abuse.

Turned instead within my head
Where pictures roamed like cartoon people,
Climbing round their little world,
And singing songs around the steeple,
In their little village green
And ending with ‘God Save The Queen’.

These little thoughts that filled my day
Were beauty and ugly all combined
Into a barrage of confusion
That I never had untwined.

Yet, in that quagmire of despair
There stood a woman, young and fair,
Whose eyes were blue like pools of spew,
Her clothes were gone, she stood all bare,
With slime and mud within her hair.

In my thoughts I asked her “Why,
If I am going to decease,
And swim about amid the pain,
Yet never find release,

“Then why should I then ever cry
If nothing heals the gaping gash
That slashes my life.”
She said: “I’ll tell you if you give me cash:

“Ten million pounds is all I ask
For every answer that you crave.
Hand it over, credit cards welcome,
I’ll take every pound you save
And when you’re dead I’ll take your grave.”

I gave it over, all ten million,
And said to her “Now tell me all,
Start at the start, now say it plain,
So let we walk before I crawl.”

All she said was “So you see,
This life is really rather funny.
That is all I’ll say for now.
If you want more, I’ll need more money.”

My savings now were almost gone,
Every penny and for what?
I’d been conned, deceived, and fooled.
She’d taken nearly everything I’d got
And I’d be damned if I’d give her the lot,

So I told her “Go your way,
I’ve had enough, I will not pay”,
And so she left me like a clot,
Caught in my thoughts and there to rot.

I turned my eyes from in to out,
And looked around the world I was in,
And covered my ears in searing pain
To cut out all the chaotic din

Of traffic, battle, screaming lust,
All the noise of crazy days,
Then shut my eyes, they hurt so much
And I was lost within a haze.

So my life had come to this,
Caught within my life so dim,
And I had reached a dead, dead end
With no way out and no way in.


© 2000 Matt Everett