Things They’ll Never See

Your legs are weak.

Another push in the back forces you to up the pace.

It feels like a hill.

A winding gravel path.

The hood smells like stale dust.

Dead skin, your mum always said.

Must be an old t-shirt.

A cotton balloon, cable tied at the neck.

You ask for water and a hand pushes you against cold stone, then on to your knees as you inhale deep breaths of dead skin.

Whoever this is, he’s had it.

Do they really know who they’re messing with?

You know people.

People who know people.

Always been surrounded by jealous bastards, you have.

That’s why you moved away.

You always hated coming home –

Back into the hole where you was born.

You never got any respect.

Never appreciated.

Not from the critics, the writers, the lads at the match.

Them in the wrangler chords and the Adidas Tobacco.

Couldn’t stand seeing someone do well could they.

How many bills to pay and how many kids, now then boys?

All living in some shit hole now – 12 hour shifts and Dancing on Ice.

He’s close by.

Watching like some alien life form.

You ask for water again.

You don’t need to apologise for anything –

You told everyone how great you were and the world agreed.

Like a Trump thing even before anyone knew what that was.

It was those melodies. They just came so easy.

If you got an ear for it, it’s alchemy.

People crave familiarity and they just lapped it up.

Who doesn’t like a story when they already know the ending?

The adulation.

It was weird at first, then you couldn’t live without it but you always knew it’d end someday. 

Just like with Marley or Vicious, even Lennon ..but the older you got – the more you didn’t want it to.

You want to be Paul not John.

The ground vibrates with pacing footsteps.

Close then far away.

You ask what would it take to walk away and forget the whole thing.

One phone call that’s all.

Anything they wanted –

They may need help and you could sort it.

You could go for a beer. 

Talk it through and find some common ground.

With great power comes great responsibility.

Everyone says that lines from Spiderman 2, but it’s from the Bible.

A priest told you – backstage at the Barrowlands, 1994.

Luke chapter 12, verse 48.

You blurt through the story of the Glaswegian priest, and how he bent your ear for half an hour whilst everyone else laughed –

….and you smile too, as you tell them.

Hoping they’ll realise they like you,

or at least did,

at one time.

But they can’t see, because your face is hidden under an old t-shirt cable tied at the neck and you’re knelt with your back against a wall, as the wind rips into your bare arms and the damp has soaked through the knees of your wrangler cords.

Soaked you to the bone.

“I’m sorry”, you say,

and a cold blade presses against your windpipe.

You scream through clenched teeth.

And you are sorry.

Snip.

The hood is yanked away and a torch thrust to your face.

A blinding light, shining far behind your eyes,

then a voice,

“Now then , that wasn’t so hard was it?”