Disc 1. Track 2 - Fire Works

I hope your ears weren’t  formed enough so you didn’t hear me shout, I hope your feelings weren’t real so you couldn’t feel the doubt and I know your hands were still so you couldn’t reach out and stop choices that were made like your opinion didn’t count.

Fireworks hurts as I see them light the sky, because as I see the colours I think about the colour of your eyes. Would they have been like your Mum’s or brown like mine? And just like you my heart has had to die but I think about you every time I hear a baby cry, or I see a baby smile. I’ll be doing something and I’ll think about your face, how I’ll never get a chance to teach you how to tie your shoe lace. You have to make a butterfly like the one your Mum has drawn on her wrist, twist’em round eachother, pull it through and then that’s it.

Fire works if you want to burn away the pain that hurts… but the hearts hallways never change, neither do road names and mind games will always win here, my love is sincere but I have lost you every day since then and maybe you would be here to hate me if doubt was more convincing.

 I’m not rinsing my hands of decisions during days of blurred visions, I’ve heard of tough positions and in the moment we could not decide who listens. Listens to our voices listens to our words that are just silence from are brain cells, listen to my girl as her silence yells from her devious smile as she changes for the better from her previous style but I am not behaving like a man whose number she could dial.  But listen to my screams too, remembering the picture that she drew, unfinished just like you. We’re like movie scenes true, Valentine Blue, our love grew but ended like we knew it would too.

I would have cradled you in my arms until you fell to sleep you know. Sat watching you grow just so nobody hurt you and when you grew I’d be measuring the length of your skirts too or make sure you always had twenty quid, like my Mum tried to make sure I always did. I’d have gone hungry like her for you all week if I had to, or weak if had to. If you fell I’d have been there to catch you, no nightmare that you’d need to be scared of, the monsters under your bed are already dead I’ve killed them & in returned the holes in my heart would be gone because you would have filled them.

And it’s cruel that I’m never going to see you crawl. Play the fool to make you laugh, give you your first bath, have the answers to questions that you need to ask. So ask me, ask me why, ask me why you needed to die. Hearts in love feel pain, nobody can love your Mum like me again, maybe better but not more or the same. No more of this insane pain, it’s hurtful and I don’t want to hurt again, we were like Courtney & Kurt Cobain, beautiful madness turned to beautiful pain, and the jury’s out they don’t who’s to blame, but I do, and it weren’t you…

Never did I imagine that I would be so deep into loving details, scary how I began to believe in fairy tales, bought what hope sells, couldn’t cope when love fails. Death stays with a man, he wears in his skin, hides heartbreak behind his grin & says every day is his new beginning. But you are the nettle that doesn’t stop stinging, the thought that doesn’t stop ringing in my day dreams, the provocation that plots & schemes to hurt me and to me it seems that you’re the weight on my shoulders that leans and sees that I’m weak & seek answers to the questions that I reek of, please just give me a fucking week off, from this mental torture… I have not bought into the distractions that your Mum has, I’m not playing happy families with a shield that will block you, I’m not the one who forgot you.

I was thinking about painting your room blue, buying your cot too, wiping snot of your nose with my hand when you said “achoo” and we said “bless you”.  Guess you never going to sneak into our bedroom, this is not the path that you’ve been led to, writing these words is still fucking with my head too. But I am willing to bet you… In another world when we were braver in another time when we were crazier, you would have without doubt been a part of our fate…the most loved kid in the kingdom or the most loved kid on the estate.

Unfortunately classes go to classes & obviously glasses to arses but as time passes the only question I have to ask is… not ready to be answered, and I have mastered pretending not to care or miss the future I prepared for, so I do ask myself, Why are you scared for?

This would have been your first Christmas & you present would have been my favourite present. Just you her & me underneath the tree & the grief that went before would have seemed like make believe & finally for once in my life I’d have a chance to breathe.  And every little kid thinks that they’re Mum & Dad are soul mates, but you would have been one of the few that were right … and if there was a chance to see you I’d do whatever it takes, just so I knew you were alright…but instead I’ll stay awake all night & wonder what you would have been like…

Disc 1. Track 1 - Pieces of Peace

I’m sick of this lazy place and when I turn to my side there’s no-one to face. I need to leave but I don’t want to act hastily, I don’t want to have people I love hating me but I feel this life I live is wasting me, I’m getting swallowed up before it’s even tasting me. See life should be easy, like ABC, but you can’t see that I can’t breathe, and things that happen to me I can’t believe. This girl I met her name rhymes with peace and her and the room she’s in represent everything that I need, maybe not forever but just until I stop the bleed.

I don’t want to call this grieving, let’s just call it ‘sadness leaving’ or the death of misery even. Robbing the bank of happiness is not stealing, it’s medicine and I need to start heeling. Back in the zone, back in a life that’s my own, every me you see is me, I am not a clone. I know the real me, I don’t need to try hard for you to believe. I shouted for help to the outside, but the outside is not ready for the outcry. People like to live a lie in delusion, like a heroin addict using, if I spat the truth in their faces they would be lost in more confusion. The world is not a place for my heavy musings and I gain nothing from proving you wrong or teaching you new things. This is just the way that I’m moving, I’m sick of losing so I’ve decided I’m improving…

A broken rose still lies and cries in my eye line and every night I go to sleep I find another petal, so my thoughts turn to a heart I lost and scores I still have to settle, but I just want to let all my hate disappear, and you will say it’s been too long I need to dry my tears, but when you said you’d fight forever it’s tough to down your spears. I never scream but when I do I hope that someone hears, yeah she said that actions speak louder than words but I shouted my heart and she forgot what she heard, didn’t care how much this hurts. Fucked with my life only cares about hers, and the more she mocks me the more I find that my loving memory blurs.

Now I am chasing skirts and I like the way that peace flirts, but I’m much kinder, true to myself keeping it nice, not pretending that they’ll be more than one night. Not defending the game but just playing my shot, reach for my heart and they’ll be getting blocked, blocked from the madness blocked with my fist, but even if they get through they can’t touch what don’t exist. Pissed up melodies, sob stories I could start selling these, I’d get rich with ease but today I choose to rise from my knees, no more thoughtless thoughts, no selling myself short, don’t snort the cocaine of paranoid pain into your brain James over thinking to find who’s to blame for all this rain that soaks you who’s to blame for everything that broke you, try see it as the pinch that finally woke you. 

Act iii Scene i - Back in the Darkness

Back in the darkness, I’m tasting harshness, trapped in & pain is a harness, where the fuck is my Tardis? Take me back in time and I’ll try my hardest…

Transformed back in to liar, transforming so much I’m going to be ducking and diving with Shia, performing from sunrise I’m fucking the lies in to the flames of a fire, torching names and selling my hurt to the first buyer. I’m not Di Caprio as Romeo I’m a magnet for hoes and sickness that grows around my soul and one day blows up like when a bomb explodes. And I’m now going to be so cold that when it snows the ice will feel cold when it hits my soul and even the sun knows that its good days are gone because when it shines on me it needs to put some clothes on.

And I’m going to make you wish that you had never been born, when I decide to get my revenge like Emily Thorne. You’re going to feel the wrath, the pain and the scorn, you’ll walk into the trap and the game will be like porn. Because you’ll be getting fucked over like you fucked over me, fucked in the brain and your mind will start to bleed. You think that you have freedom but you will never be free, you always think that you’re the victim and this time I will agree, cos I’m going to take it to a level that you could never reach, you’re finally out of back up lives this game you can’t complete.

I can’t hate a man with a face like a ten year old boy, a smug smirk because he’s been given a new toy. A berk but he is the king of the playground, everybody wants to look at what he’s holding, but kids get bored and one day he’ll drop you like you’re scalding. And fuck yes I told him! But he had the dice and he chose to roll’em, he may be nice but his dignity and brain he sold’em. Don’t ignore a message when it’s been delivered from hell, don’t ignore the devil when he rings your doorbell. See I’m not a grass and I’m not a tell-tell but you designed the past and like a fool you fell, for your own bravery, now things are going to turn unsavoury, love is gone forever but to show you who I am it’s not too late for me.

[I’m not afraid of the dark the dark is afraid of me, I can hear all the dogs as they bark, but they’re scared and so they should be. This ghost fucks the offensive, if given the chance it would decide not to live, it senses that it can’t breathe in a world full of censors. Death is a peaceful misery the paradoxical world with no fences. Nevertheless, I keep climbing, searching for the non-existent silver lining. Ironing out the creases before I can find out what peace is. Wondering if I’d prefer to know what eases the pain, ever learning that there’s no cure for this stain. A gun resting on my tongue no need to aim, a final song I’ve sung, I’ve seen my final frame.]

[If I sing a final song I sing a song about a place where lights burn brighter, where birds fly higher, Elvis on the stage and I’m in the crowd with a lighter. He sings about a wind of promise that blows away the doubt but as it blows past me all it does is put my fire out. And he believes that if I have the strength to dream then I can redeem my soul and fly, but I would rather load this gun and shoot myself and die. Supposedly out in the dark he says there’s a beckoning candle but life has shut my eyes to hope and lies are too much hurt to handle.]

[The last thing I see is the knuckle on my hand, I don’t even get to see my knees buckle when I can no longer stand. The blood is like a river flowing through the land and people will say he’s on a beach in heaven but I can’t see the sand. The mourners will drop their flowers in my grave that I don’t want and they will cry for hours after I am in the dark forever, but they have so many more corners left to turn & hurt they’ll have to endeavour and one day they’ll forget that they ever cried together. I would rather burn to ash and be thrown in to the air because maybe one day you’ll breathe me in and see how much you care. Scatter me on the playground where I last had any hope, where I dangled from a rope climbing up towards my dreams never seeing the end. I’ve seen the end and the rope was broken, just like my heart is now, if ghosts do play then I want to play there, kicking a ball between two bins, and I will cheer and I will hear… people saying only good things.]

I may not know how to lead a normal life, to grow within the mould and bear it till the day I die. I don’t care for normality or fashion I’ll draw my own reality and fight the truth with passion. I don’t know how to deal with fools who fool me, or block the hypnotism of promises that sometimes get to rule me. And long ago I left alone the cool me, and called out the devil who has yet to come and duel me. The battle of the mind is one that I have yet to win, but I have sipped the finest wine with soldiers on the brink, and I have met many men who’ve drowned but I am yet to sink.

And I don’t give a fuck what any dickhead thinks, or sluts who make up inbox links. Who’ve had more cocks then I’ve had drinks. The dirt you have etched on your skin can’t be washed off in the bath, and you can scrub your hardest, but you can’t scrub it off your heart. That grin I used to have a thing for, now looks so slimy and perverse, and next time you want to be a whore I hope you have your lies rehearsed. If nobody has told you this then let me be the first, you are a somebody that nobody would ever want to wife, because you’ve been Rollin’ more than Fred Durst, and each bed degrades your life.

How somebody who was heeling so well could sell their body back to hell is beyond me, and if you thought that I would let this go then you got to know the wrong me. And with every man who thinks he can just put his arms around your waist, I see the photos of all these men and what you are is not to my taste.

The hurting will now be done behind the curtain. I am not sure of anything anymore that is for certain. 

My Right Pocket

Peeling off a plaster isn’t as painful as we think; it’s the build-up and the fear that we let ourselves imagine which creates a pain even worse than the one we feel when we finally decided to rip it off. I’m sitting here and I feel that my life is just waiting for that pain and I’m anticipating it hurting more and more the longer I wait for it.

I’m talking about a girl. Yes, Shakespeare compares girls to a summer’s day; I am comparing my girl to a plaster.

First it’s a few nights out and in the photos I am not by her side, flicking my eyebrow up like an idiot or looking down as she smiles back up at me both of us clutching a double JD & coke. Then it’s the forgetting me, waking up not remembering how I made her laugh, how I kissed her lips or how I held her in my arms as she fell to sleep knowing she was safe while I was near. The playful teasing, the witty quips, are replaced by quotes thought to be wise to help convince her she’s chosen the right path and the home cooked meal with tiny gifts are replaced by a bottle of champagne and a card that I did not get her.  Then tomorrow it’ll be a photo with another man, until over time he is the man in most of the photos. The poems and the hash-tags will belong to him and so will my girl’s heart. My plaster will be torn and so will the core of my soul.

Pain is one thing, I can handle pain. Waiting for the pain though, that’s torture. Knowing one day you’ll hear a name, one that all though it never did, you still feel it belongs to you and you’ll have to sit and nod and hear a story about what they’re doing these days and pretend you’ve never known of that name before, it doesn’t sound familiar. Knowing someone is giving her their time, and even worse knowing she is giving her time to someone too. Who? Where? When? Why? Questions hurt, not having the answers kills. There is no running away from this inevitable kind of agony either, because you wait for it and when it doesn’t come you go and look for it and I’ve found little nails of this agony but the sword still awaits me.

I don’t write many truths about my life here but here is some truth for you. There was a girl at a bar who my mate was trying to chat up, and I popped my drunken head over his shoulder and said ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me?’ He did, and I went back to watching Arsenal v Bradford in the Carling Cup whilst also letting the other guys watching it know that I had just spoken to the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.  Now the tale goes that later on in the night I sat down at her table with her mates, and began chatting to her. Important moments of that conversation = I tried to make myself sound better than I am because in fact I am a mess of a man, and also I was asked to buy a red wrist band for charity from a bar girl but I don’t believe in charity, so the most beautiful girl I have ever seen bought me one and I put it on. We continued to talk, getting to know each other and I was hooked, intrigued by another human being more than ever. I could sense I wasn’t welcome on the table by the two guy mates she was with but I didn’t care. We then went to a tiny club, and she was getting bullied on the stairs by a group of girls and as I went to the toilet I saw them ganging up on her and stepped in and told them to do one, but not that politely.  Last note of that night, is I somehow managed to get her and her mate who already admitted to me that night he was in love with her back to my friends house, where just as she went to step through the front door I pulled her back and we kissed in my friend’s front drive way. Neither of us can completely remember the kiss or the rest of the night because we both blacked-out.

My initial instinct here is to write out start to finish exactly everything we ever did and everything I ever felt from beginning to end with this girl, but right here, right now, it’s not about that. I’m not really sure what it is about, possibly closure but I don’t think I will ever have that, or possibly just another meaningless rant, but even the meaningless rants are not meaningless if you’ve purposely tried to make them meaningless right?

Never think you completely know somebody even when you know you do. Never stop trying to win their heart even though you hold it in the palm of your hand. People grow and because they grow they never stay the same, the person you love keeps learning and changing, so you have to keep learning and getting to know them over and over again. I was too caught up in the passion to ever have time to sit back and see that. It’s only now when it’s too late that I see I took her for granted and I took my life for granted. Just because it wasn’t exactly where I wanted to be in terms of what I deemed successful didn’t mean it wasn’t getting better. Like Roy Cropper said to Hayley… she got my excuse of an existence and turned it in to a life. I will be forever grateful for all the good times we shared and know deep down that the majority of those good times were because she enabled them.

Caught up in the passion sounds about right. Utter madness from day 1. The scratch marks, the bite marks I still feel them. Fighting in the house or in the street it didn’t matter to us, we fought like enemies but enemies never make up like we did. Guess that’s half of the problem, we could tear each other’s hair out and scream the word ‘cunt’ in each other’s faces 500 times a day but it always felt like the cuts would heal and just a smirk or a look from one of us and she’d jump into my arms and the fight was over because we loved one another more than anything and we were forever. Unfortunately it seems that we took it to the edge every time and eventually we fell off.

The character Theodore in the movie HER said ‘I think I have felt everything I’m ever gonna feel, and from here on out I’m not gonna feel anything new, just lesser versions of what I’ve already felt.’  I identified with what he said and how he felt. I could be in a restaurant with the loveliest girl in the world, a nice person and good company but at the end of the day it’s not the same. I don’t expect it to be the same and I realise moving on, meeting new people and having new experiences is going to be different. But I find myself wanting to share these times with the girl who I planned to love forever. I want it to be her laugh I hear, I want it to be her waist I put my arm around at the bar. And when I laugh I feel it’s a little less louder and when I smile it’s a little less bigger. I’m not saying I won’t care about anyone ever again, or that I won’t fall in love again. The world is a big place and I’m determined to see it. I’m just afraid that everything is going to always be just a little less. Life and good times aren’t worth living if those moments are not shared and I wanted to share those times with this girl.

It’s a weird feeling to be alone. After spending 24/7 with somebody for a year I find myself automatically going to tell her something, or just waiting for her call. Seeing something I know she’d want to see or hear about and I desperately want to tell her and I can’t. My phone doesn’t ring with her name on it and the door doesn’t knock with her standing on the front step. The strange thing is that I feel something is missing, but even if I did open the door to see her there the thing that is missing would still not be back. See I often dream that we meet again, and the passion is still there and the love is still there. But that’s just the me in a dream. The me that’s awake would know that another man would have kissed her, held her, touched her, had her. The beautiful, funny, kind girl that I loved is gone. With every guy, with every night, with every new memory, a little part of my girl goes with them until one day she’s gone completely. The fact there’s going to be new guys who talk about meeting her like I did, get excited about texting her, holding her, talking to their mates about my girl, that eats away at me, it irritates my heart to the point of exhaustion.

I often ask myself was the pain worth the journey and although at the moment I possess a bitter tongue I would always say that it was. I never fell in love with a collection of cliché’s. Sure she was sexy and crazy and fun but deeper than that I fell in love with something that was true. I fell in love with hope. The hope that I could fix her and she could fix me.  I fell in love with the fact that she loved me even though I am an addict, sad, angry and all the other things I am that only she knows about. I loved her even more because she knew I was living in the gutter and decided to come and live there with me. Making plans to get us both out of it. I also got to know a girl who was broken, scarred, naïve, insecure and vulnerable. We went deep from day one and that was intense but I don’t regret it. We didn’t fall in love because of similar music tastes, or similar values or family background. I can’t talk for her but I know I never stopped falling in love with her because she was real. I didn’t always get her, in fact at times she drove me crazy with her behaviour and attitude but I loved her because at least I wasn’t getting to know only the good things. I fell in love with the pain, the scars, the past which led her to me. And damn I was bitter about my life, I knew deep down that I had a chance to become a footballer and I threw it away. I’ve lived ten years with regrets buried in my mind. But I started not to regret so much when I saw that the path I went down led me to this girl, who I could share an adventurous future with. Starting to not regret my past led me to not judge her for hers, because her journey and story led her to me and I was very thankful for that.

I never judged her for her past, but at times I judged her for her present. I don’t think I will ever comprehend her mind set at times but I’m sure she will never understand mine either. I’m not sure what killed something so strong in the end but I have my suspicions. What I am sure of is that I am so sorry if I ever made her feel like she wasn’t the most important thing to me because I can assure you that she was. I’m sorry if I ever made her cry, even though she has the most beautiful crying face. I don’t regret the happy tears though; I just wish there were more of those times. The tears when I told her that I wanted to get her a kitten but her Mum said no, I regret those tears because I just wish I fucking bought it. I tried to be considerate but I wish I just only considered my girl. I was never going to win over a woman who has prejudice, hate and bitterness built in to her. Poison, stupidity and manipulation seems to always win over love, truth and kindness, so I had nothing to lose. Our third and final trip to Ascot, oh how I loved our days out. I needed to go to the toilet so desperately that day on the way home but more than anything I didn’t want to wake her up as she slept on my lap. Ready to burst we jumped off at Kingston and I ran off in to the street looking for somewhere to go, eventually arriving back at the station to see my slightly drunk, slightly tired girl crying her eyes out and running over to me to give me a hug. “I thought you left me”, she said, choking on her tears. “I will never leave you” I said, meaning it with all of my heart. I don’t regret those sad tears, because right there in that moment, I loved her more than I ever loved her before. Ironically part of me thinks that night could have been the beginning of the end, because not long after when we got to our last stop we began the most almighty fight over something so ridiculous and looking back now I wish I hadn’t been so stubborn and just did something her way. The escalation was unnecessary and it began to eat away at us, but as I say, lost in the passion and the madness I never took a step back to see the storm coming, we just tried to ride every wave.

The love was intense, if I wasn’t at her house she was at mine, even right at the start her Mum came around to take her home because she hadn’t been home in 4 days nor been in touch. I started to rely on her love and her kindness and at points took advantage of that love and kindness. Not in a cruel way, just in a selfish way and I’m not a selfish person but I was behaving selfishly. She relied on my love too, I saw desperation in her eyes on so many occasions where she’d just turn up at my house and shake me until I was whoever she wanted me to be and said whatever it was she wanted me to say. It’s not attractive to be desperate, but her vulnerability and desperation at times were not negatives for me. She didn’t need to impress me, she was perfect in my eyes, crazy…yes…but perfect. Holding back the tears I guess she wanted to know she was never going to be alone, that I was always going to be there for her. I needed her to do things to give me the same confirmation and I hated her at times for not being who I needed her to be in certain situations. I also desperately wanted her to stand up for me like I always would for her (Whether she was right or wrong.) I don’t know if little Indian kids steal drinks in pubs, but if she says they do then I’m going to war with her. I was like Tony Blair following George W. Bush into Afghanistan. Tony didn’t know if there were Weapons of Mass Destruction but he loved George so much he dived in anyway, all guns blazing. We’ll find the truth out later, but for now I’ve got your back! I make light of it but, I needed her to back me, no questions asked. Back me because she trusted I’d always have her best interests at heart or just back me because she loved me and wouldn’t take anyone bad mouthing me even if they were right. The security in family and ‘friends’ lets her sleep easier at night, maybe building a life together wasn’t secure enough and maybe one day certain decisions will be proven to be the right ones. I never said I would be the easy choice, I thought choosing each other would be the best choice, but at the end of the day once upon a time there wouldn’t have needed to be a choice made. I don’t know what happened or who said what, but what I do know is we had been through more in four months together than most people go through in their entire lives and it’ll never leave me. I’ll never forget.  Kodaline were right, ‘a love like this won’t last forever.’ She used to make me turn that song off when I tried to listen to it, and at points I did feel like they were singing about us.

Waterloo, Tops Pizza, Domino’s Pizza, the Caspoon, Green Tea, Junction, the Oscars, Jack Daniels, my Anti-Aging moisturiser, Park Royal, Rummy, Cheese Toasties, Christmas, Flowers, Bastille, Tesco Express, Skittles, the Sofa, Les Mis, West Harrow station, Sable, Summer, Morrison’s, Moons, Twitter, Kittens, Ascot, Fashion, the Great Gatsby, my camera, Vogue magazine, the toffee ice cream sauce in my kitchen cupboard and my right pocket.

I’ll never forget her because everything reminds me of her. Nothing really dies if it lives on in somebody’s heart and mind. Elvis, Shakespeare, Marilyn Monroe, Bonnie and Clyde….

I could sit here for days and list things that remind me of her and talk about the good memories I have, genuine smiles and a love that relieved me. How I felt when she came back from holiday and I saw her for the first time, 1 week away and I’ve never missed anybody as much, that pales in to insignificance now. The Zoo, my birthday, or the second time we went to Ascot (“Go on Lord of the Dance”). I could also sit here and talk about all the memories I don’t have because we never got there for one reason or another. What I had planned for her birthday, holidays, Vegas, everything else only she knows we spoke about and everything else only I know I had planned.

One memory sticks out for me though above all the others. I was at her house last year and we were having a great night then out of nowhere I started to become very sick, I was vomiting for hours, from every end imaginable. She had the big sofa bed set up for us both in the living room and I could see she was trying so hard to stay awake to make sure I was ok, but I wasn’t. I started to not be able to breathe and throwing up every five minutes wasn’t helping. Eventually we called the non-emergency number and painfully I tried to talk to the woman on the phone who suggested an ambulance came out to get me. That’s embarrassing enough because I don’t go to the doctor even when my head is falling off my neck, but to have my beautiful girlfriend there watching me look like a weak mess then that to most people would be slightly mortifying. I feel like right now, I should look back and be mortified, but at the time I wasn’t. I was very comfortable being myself around her and not purposely so, I think it just came very naturally. I just remember being worried about her because she had work in the morning. I did tell her not to look at me vomiting in the ambulance though, did she listen? No, she never did. Instead she stayed by my by side all night in the hospital until the morning, getting me water, holding my hand, making sure I was ok, and looking very worried like the spicy chicken wings she cooked for me the night before weren’t cooked properly. She was so tired but she stayed right next to me and I will never forget how that made me feel. I believed that day that she loved me and was truly sorry for anything that had gone on before. We walked in to Harrow and got the bus back to mine, and although she had work she sorted me out, lay in bed with me until I went to sleep, and on no sleep herself she went in to work. I heard all the best actors have a moment in time that they think of which allows them to cry on cue. I never really got that until without fail my eyes fill with tears every time I think about that night. I’m not sure if they’re happy tears or sad tears to be honest. Happy that someone could love me so much, yes. But so sad to be so confused as to how that girl could become a girl I don’t know within a few months. I’ll always remember that time. Especially because when she needed a tampon in the hospital I called the nurse over and she came back with what can only be described as an insole for a giant’s trainer.

Most men will tell their girl, that she is the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. Even if that man is going out with Joan Rivers. I’ve not had many girlfriends; I’ve not yearned for them but mostly because when I fell in love I wanted it to be forever. I didn’t want to pretend to care about a person just for a small moment in time. I wanted to be able to look my wife in the eye and say to her ‘I love you, more than anything and anyone.’ I wanted to be able to let her know that she was truly the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.  A shallow part of me also wanted to be with the best looking girl I had ever seen, because at least when I told her that she was I knew I was telling the truth. Not many men can do that in their life. I could though, and I did.

She is the most beautiful girl, but the most beautiful thing that a man could want, is truth. One day hopefully I’ll be lucky enough to have it. Until then I still have hope, and although it’s the most dangerous of things, right now it’s about all I have. I sent a shabby incomplete draft version of a screenplay I wrote about four years ago called ‘I See You Harry’ to the BBC Writersroom in December. It was on a whim as I was browsing the site and saw the closing date was that very day. I got an E-Mail back in February to say that it got down to the last 15% of over 3000 scripts sent in. It doesn’t sound like the biggest achievement in the world but, it gave me a little spark back, a tiny ray of hope. People in the door that I can’t break down, read it and decided it was good enough to go through and not in the bin. Hope, and a tiny bit of pride restored. I was made to feel very small once, by an old lady in skinny jeans and a Ralph Lauren jumper. Fuck her! I am not nothing. I am somebody and I will strive to be somebody better. Only I have walked in my shoes, and quite frankly I believe only I could handle that task.

I don’t know what happened with the girl I love. My forever girl, my best friend. Maybe we were too young to deal with that passion and that intensity. Maybe we had things we needed to do alone before we could do everything together. I could have grown to resent her and she resent me if we weren’t able to get our dreams & ambitions out of our system, I don’t know. Maybe she needed to kiss a few more ugly creatures in nightclubs, and maybe I wasn’t ready to give up a similar part of me forever. Forever is a long time after all.

If there is a parallel universe then I hope me and my girl are there, together, with Harri Beau. My girl with all the high heels she could ask for and me with all the hair that I could ask for. I hear us from here, me doing a stupid voice, ‘bubba’, ‘little Natty Klara’. Her calling me ‘Jimmy Gunn’ in her silly voice and singing ‘I adore you’ to me in an even worse voice. I hope we’re happy. If in that universe it’s just us, loving each other like we did when we were together, with no outside influences or opinions, then I know we will be.

Plasters have to come off in the end, and once they do, the wound has healed, the cut is a scar, but the real pain is no more. 

R.I.P.N.K. - The Death of N.Kapoor

Your love still lingers in my sheets but after all these weeks it screams at me to admit defeat. I’ve gone to war with your deceit and now that life is looking bleak only answers can I seek. But when they don’t come my mind is weak and all I do sit and weep, and wonder how you became a sheep. Cos you think that you are wild and free but you’re just a sheep I see, next to a creep or three and when I’m asleep I dream of your naivety.

I thought you should know that when I fought you in the snow I never expected you to stay I always thought that you would go and when you stayed I prayed that you never leave my side, and when I said I didn’t love you then, to myself I lied. The only girl I’ve ever loved the only life I’d die for, and part of you once died for me and for the best so I thought.

Disease has beaten me with ease. I’m sure everyone at the party is pleased. Your family finally free of the poor, live by the sword, but they’d run from a war. Ignorance is hard to ignore, they have you infected and I was the cure. Cancer of the soul, a tumour in their humour, I hear people talk of freedom but I swear that’s just rumour.

The ten year depression doesn’t seem to want to end so in the middle of this battle I’ve only got aggression as my friend but if I’ve ever learnt a lesson it’s to know when to pretend and all the different ways that a man can seek revenge.

Your body was my shadow always standing by my side and now with my eyes not watching it your back must be blind. Now when I go in to battle I notice that my secret weapon is missing from my hand, I can’t seem to find the reason or a clue to understand.

And as I stand defeated something seems to stop my breath all the things that you’ve deleted are the reason for my death. The pictures of us smiling and the one when I’m asleep, you said you’d never let us go now even memories you don’t keep. The one that really got me was you deleting LAFB and while I was adding zoo and gatsy pics you were making sure I was never seen.

Like I lifted you over the puddle I wish I could lift you over the curse in your brain, because your addiction causes more pain than rain. It’s my storm and I can’t stay afloat, because I’ve sunk before and I can’t ride the wave again and by me you can’t be saved again. Something within you wants to die, wants to catch the eye of every guy, behave likes cunts do, meaningless compliments are like heroin to you, jabbed up in your arm making you fall for meaningless charm, but you always did love the drama, back to fucking djs aren’t ya? Groomed up to the eyeballs, manipulated by men and your Mum, your heart beats but it beats to the sound of their drum.

I should have never started talking when my tongue is bitter, but the more I think, everything just becomes sicker and sicker. The hurt never leaves you, the paranoia never dies, but the truth weaves through all the holes in your lies. Looking through the window I always wondered what you did when I wasn’t there, and inside my drunken state I saw that you didn’t ever care. And weeks later when I got the call, you still prolonged my pain, lock yourself up forever, so you can never kill again. The street I walked will still hear me weep of course, and my tears are the pen that marked them, and you never ran, and you never rang, you hit the bar and you booked a plane and when you see my grave I know you’ll dodge the blame. Find comfort in the coolness of cocaine, or the guy who gave you the Valentine’s Day card under the champagne, Rob Williamson’s girl is back restart the game.

I heard some kid got murdered by the bus stop outside of Lidl it was on the news, I walked past it on the day you killed me, then again the next day with a knife in my back. It was a murder scene long before his attack. You did try to heal me though didn’t you? I hope it was love and not guilt that we were built on. The wounds were closing but so was the curtain on our show, and even though we’ve taken our final bow, I don’t want to let you go.  But all good things come to an end, and I could never have you as a friend. So two souls meet, at a bar, and fall in love, but like a shooting star it dies before our eyes, yet we talk about that time it happened, because it’s rare and for the rest of our lives we stare up in to the sky and wait for it to happen again, but it never does. Not for me, not for you, not for us.

And you made me doubt my mind too, if you were ever looking for truth I would never deny you. Once upon a time you would have fucked with the wrong guy, but I’m just so tired of hating people like you that I don’t try, to get you back to hurt you to the point that you don’t want to live, fucking with your future and not give a damn, and believe me I can, but people like you can’t ever understand. Evil is taught, ignorance brought in by the witches  who snort for a sport, an illness that’s caught and cannot be sorted, plans that cannot be thwarted, dream worlds, I saw the picture, I saw it twice, advice that’s not nice, I’m a gambler but you rolled the dice.

I propose a toast, and here’s to your boast, that you are the best liar but that I hardly believe. For the best liars, don’t boast, and don’t get introduced to doubt, they never answer questions, whatever they’re about. See you are the worst, because you think you’re the first, to play the game, and to play with lives, and walk away with a back free of knives. And when you get caught you say sorry like you meant it, but you play the game, you never did invent it.

So when you lie awake at night, and believe that you hold all the cards, remember imagination can think up all types of facades. And when you think your lies are great; don’t lie to someone whose disguise is greater. I met this girl and now I hate her, but I protected myself, because too late is later.  So when you’re asleep, or when you belittle our story, through a text to a nobody just remember these things for me. Did you enjoy your holiday? Or the night you couldn’t get through to my phone? Did you enjoy waiting in the queue on your birthday? Ever wonder what happened when your sister and I were alone?  Do I ever think about the early days, when you mocked me and treated us as a joke. I thought about it every second, and swallowed my pride so much I nearly choked. What you did was an almighty shame, your lies killed us in the end, you wanted to play the game, but the rules you cannot bend. I make the rules, because I am the game, you think you burnt me, but I am the flame.

Back to guys ringing you up asking you if you want some drugs, do you remember how those phone calls ruined you, but you’ll do anything to fit in with these mugs. I don’t want be near a girl, who wants a guy who has eyebrows for a forehead, I feel sick to my gut seeing these faces and knowing that they’ve been in your bed. I feel sorry for you and your sister, you have a common illness, and believe me when I say this, to die is what I would rather, than be near her guy, Karen or Golparvar.

I lost my morals for you; I once said I’d never touch a girl like you. So I taste defeat but you’re still w*g meat and not to be mean but you’ll never be clean so don’t take the likes as a sign that you’re wanted because if they knew the truth that your skin is haunted then they wouldn’t be begging it hiding behind a screen, peel back the filter and you’d hear them scream. And I have this recurring dream, like you’re out there now behaving like you did with me, booking a cab or something like that, a train to go and see a guy, kiss him on the sofa, tell him a lie. Back to being needy, meeting up with blokes, inhale the spliff of ‘freedom’ but there’s ugly in these tokes.

R.I.P. like Rita Ora said, those days are over you’re guna be a whore instead. Every night another dirty bed, another cock getting head. Laugh about it in the morning but deep down you’re dead, because the expensive clothes will never hide the fact that your pussy’s red.

Follow guys on Twitter that you’ve met on nights out, just like you did to me. Message you on Facebook cos no fitter girl have they ever seen. Time flys when you’re having fun, but time drags when you’re tasting cum. I don’t need confirmation that you’re behaving like a used and abused whore, texting to meet up for a drink within days was enough, denying it before you are caught. Until the day I die I’ll die every time knowing during our day you were getting to know another guy. 11^th to Christmas. From not knowing a name to calling them ‘the boys’, New Years Eve bleeds on my soul. Feeds my hurt that I can’t let go.

Someone once told me that you never really loved me, and more than anything I wanted them to be wrong. And for a time they were but I’ll always want to know why, when I asked you not to you still made my life a lie? AND when I gave you a chance, which I’d never usually give, you continued to lie, wasting my time, spending your nights in the arms of other guys. Right to the end, 27^th on my bed, I asked you for the truth and lies you told instead. Tell me what happened, for your love to cease, tell me why you brought me pain when you said you’d bring me peace?

Remember on your 21^st, when I got you a shout out in Oceana? Did we go to a place where you saw you and Ben? Why would he be messaging you to go back to his? Was I walking in the footprints of your lies again? You’ll never know the unbearable pain of not having the truth in your mind, told me you met Will the year before, haha!.. another doubtful time. Straight to my face, so write me the truth? Let me let you go you’ve got nothing to lose. I said you felt different the last time I felt you, not thinking about who you coulda fucked,  trying to remember the last hand I dealt you, last time you kissed me when you loved me, last time we made up, planned for the future but was your mind made up? A cunt bringing my stuff back to mine, erasing me from your life for the last time. I was good enough for you, but her mind-set is not, you may not remember me but my girl would have never forgot. With her by your side you WILL rot, the path you’ve chosen is not you, it’s not happy and it’s not the truth.  

Telling people private things? Put me down so you can fit in?  Guys asking are you single now so they can fuck you? Cuss me so they like you? Breath the naïve in to your heart, we’re not together, thought we’d never be apart? When I told you that story you cried and you squeezed me, wanted me to stop talking and said you’d never leave me.  That time you came to my door, I was sick of fighting but for us you fought, I never wanted you to be a lesson but looks like I’ve been taught. DTA like I said before I met you, follow my own path, look at my own dreams that I’m tryna get to. My dreams changed to involve you forever, tell me what really happened for us not to be together?

See I’ll be only breaking bread with the people I’ve starved with, stay true to myself none of this rolex swarve shit. You said you’d phone the police & then I knew your mind had been fully stolen, weakness is not illegal, but what you’ve done to me is a crime, you were frightened to be left on your own, yet to leave me on mine you didn’t mind?

I just wish I got to show you the best of me, you loved me at my lowest, but walked away before the end, and love is lonely if it’s not with my best friend, and I know we could have been happy somewhere around the bend, because the roads they curve and the paths they break, and I’d always swerve to try and change our fate.

And when you’re cut it’ll be me you bleed, because still inside I am beside you, the soul you introduced suicide to. Now whenever you decide to wake up from the poison that decided to blind you don’t look for me because I’ll come and find you. Just give me sign, a metaphor a wink, wake up sleeping beauty- we’ll go for a drink.

Poem of a Sad Man

Death has crawled in to my soul
Poisoning my love with hate
The warmth I had has turned ice cold
Oh please just freeze my fate


For if fate were true it has decided
To break my life in half
Just tell me please what was it I did
For life to take my laugh


Pain has drawn its ugly head
Upon the canvas that is my life
I feel to paint an ugly pain in red
On my wrists with a knife


These tears taste of just regret
My final coin I tossed
I gambled on this girl I met
My most important bet I lost


The hopeful fool whispers to me
His voice makes me shake with fear
I know her hand is no longer mine to hold
But he whispers ‘persevere’.


Dreams are dead the grief is dark
Murdered by mistakes
All the cuts have left their mark
Scars watch as my heart breaks


Finding solace hard to find
A future looking bleak
I’ve gone to war with my mind
Paranoia knows I’m weak


Dress my aching days with lies
Waking to the ticking of pretend
Faking will just about hide the cries
But not the fact I’ve lost my friend


And if I fall in love again
It won’t be with all of my heart
Because she will own a piece forever
She has done from the start



By James Gunn

(written January 2nd 2014)

ACT ii Scene ii: Hate and Heartache

The hole in my soul is a bullet wound, shot by the love that was doomed from the first night, doomed from the first lie. Told by your lips that caused the first fight. Now I wish that time would just die, be erased from mind, left behind in the days when I was blind so I can find how to be fine.

 

A year made up, held you in my arms as you told me stories as we stayed up. 7am bedtimes never stopped the long lines tears never stopped the long lies. I thought I was wise but I gave it up for a whore in disguise, now all I can do is despise you, my eyes don't recognize you, love you I tried to, it's tough when you're lied too, if your heart breaks then mine too. One day you'll have a look behind you, but I'm never guna come find you, or be beside you, holding you in my arms as only I do.

I do not need to prove that I loved you from the start, by the time that you realise that I did I will have rubbed you off my heart. The scars are tattoos that have your name invisibly written, not with a pen scratched and bitten. The scracthes fade and the bites they heal but the pain is remembered and the blood still spills. The hurt still kills, yeah the strong still feel, 2013 one year that makes me ill.

Act 2 Scene 1 - read it again. Those were the words that should have signified the end. The last time you lied should have been back then, but ever since, you've lied time and time again, and even though I begged you not to you've made my life pretend. Like when you text B**, all the times in the clubs with different men, New Years Eve was a lie kept up to deceive me. A year long joke, and I'll never know what to believe even recently, cos you're still incapable of having common decency. I hope you've kept the receipt for your deceit because I know longer want it. I'll never get any of it, I can only learn. Take all the love I had for you and watch it burn. And just like when you kissed HIM, you can play the victim. But one day you'll remember my name and think how much you miss me, won't ever kiss anybody like you kiss me.

I gave you a chance, and you used it as a gun. And when we used to dance, you never told me I should run. And fuck your sister and fuck your Mum, both of them are cunts both of them are scum. Both of them are dumb. But both of them have won.

I don't doubt that I gave you sleepless nights, and I never wanted to make you cry. I just wanted you to know that when you turned out the lights, in the dark you'd never die. Because I would be beside you even when I wasn't there, and though a love likes ours was destined to die I hate it cos that's not fair. Because I loved you deep and I loved you hard and the passion's strength was rare. And we tried to stay afloat for time but in the end I think we had to sink cos in our heart their was a tear. And to think I'm not going to have your arms wrapped around my waist, or hear your voice or see your face leaves a painful bitter taste. To hear you sing, or to see you smile just one more time's my hope, but the hate and heartache has become our fate and it's too late for us, we broke.