Control

Control.

Who has it?

Not me.

Though I could

If I chose

But I choose not to.

I choose to forfeit

My right to be myself

To determine my future

Because I am fearful of the consequences

Of doing so

Even though I know

In my heart of hearts

That I could be happier

If I did.

It’s the little things

That indicate the person who

Cannot choose to be themselves

Who almost wants to suffer

To be a prisoner

Of the one who tried to imprison him

All those years ago.

The prisoner who therapists said

Could take control

Because everyone is entitled

To be free

To be themselves.

But if I was myself

I would murder and maim

I would cut out the tongues

Of those who might disrespect me

Or remove their legs in case they might

Move close to me.

I have been let down

By my parents

By myself

By hope

By faith

But not by love.

I have not been betrayed by love

(Outside of the family)

But each morning I rise

And wonder how to fill

Another meaningless day

Until I die

In 20-30 years.

That’s less than the time since

We first met.

In less than that time

I will be dead

And I am told

That that time will be

What I make it

And if I breathe from my stomach

And focus on the positive

And connect with the unborn self

And am alive to the present

Then…

But this is the fucking present

Right now

As I type this

This is the present

Where I am centred

And want to weep

Because I will never have control

I have forfeited that

To all the other people I encounter

Who determine my life

And I let them

And I seem to be happy with that

Don’t I?

Family duties

It’s a New Year and in a few months time it will be my 50^th. Yet I am not sure what will have changed by the time I reach that particular milestone. Too much time on my own to think, perhaps. For when I am not writing about the Gulf from the vantage point of Walthamstow, I am wondering what the point of any of it is. The book will provide something different for those who are so inclined. In the context of recent family events, and an inability to believe the future will be profoundly different, my enthusiasm sometimes wanes. If I don’t have a runner in the Mid-East race, and if I don’t feel a desperate desire or ability to reveal some hitherto unrevealed truth about it, then it is perhaps unsurprising if I am not always totally fired-up about my professional duties.  

Aside from that, the great escape (to where?) has been indefinitely postponed. I am childless, yet tied to family. Without family, yet performing family duties. What a strange state to be in. My mother died 15 months ago and I am still waiting for the headstone. Without parents I have no one to cry to. As a child I cried to my parents. As an adolescent I needed to cry to someone else about my parents… I found Jesus. As a young man I turned away from fathers, holy and unholy. As a middle aged man my parents began to need me to cry to…about themselves, about each other. In the last five years I have buried them both. I may never see my brother again. I am happily married to the woman who has been my closest friend for more than two decades. I am lucky. This is narcissistic, attention-seeking, nonsense.