The sun, prizes my curtains apart again, mauling my eyelids,

as I lie here, in my self-contained flat,

a high-rise, male teenager in a canopy of concrete and steel.

Green envious eyes peer down,

at the urban jungle below.

I am hooded, against the cold,

a shadow of an existence,

as I meander, the grey washed streets of conformity.

My daily life bores me shitless,

so I have a personal competition,

trying to spot those with jobs or unemployed.

Should I walk forward, today?

or backwards just for a laugh?

This confuses fellow actors on community’s stage.

The crinkliest performers

stare, open mouthed, at me and my fellow hooded teens,

as if waiting for words to come out,

like constipated goldfish in a bowl.

They don’t know about me,

barely enough to eat, in my canopy home.

I am just, another statistic, in a tick box state.

Would society find me,if I was not there?

 

 The sun, prizes my curtains apart again, mauling my eyelids

as I lie here in my self-contained flat

a high-rise male teenager in a canopy of concrete and steel.

Green envious eyes peer down,

at the urban jungle below.

That old bag from upstairs

is banging on mi pissin ceiling again,

dragging me back through my play station,

from my parallel surreal world, my escape

where I am king.

I crank up the volume to

drown the stupid cow out.

I am, sick of her going on about,

’Back in my day’and ‘When I was your age’.

I wait for her in the stare-well, until passes.

Later, she gingery passes, I grab her arm, put her in her place.

My collective stand on street corners,

laugh and shoutat her as she crosses the road.  

Today I heard her weeping, as she walked past.

Suddenly, I don’t feel so big at all.

I am back, sat crying, on my Grandma’s knee as a boy.

Would society find her, if she wasn’t there?

 

 The sun prizes my curtains apart again, mauling my eyelids

as I lie here in my self-contained flat

a high-rise male teenager in a canopy of concrete and steel.

Green envious eyes peer down,

at the urban jungle below.

My attentionis wrenched to the floors above,

towards the sound of shouting and bodies crashing.

A gun-shot and a scream rings out,

echo’s ricochet down the lift shaft.

I heard “Police” shouted.

More screams, more bodies

thunderdown communal stairwells.

Adrenalin courses through my veins.

My old lady! She lives upstairs.

I race against the tide

to the epicentre of the sea of confusion.

There’s my old lady lying slumped,

like a ragdoll, in a pool of blood.

She’d been caught in the crossfire of a bad drugs deal.

Surviving, she returns to her flat, just another statistic, like me.

I left Mary two bags of shopping outside her flat door again today.

I vow, that this society will find us, because we are here?

 

© Phil Golding 04/10  ©