The Girl In The Dirty Shirt

Lets All Make Believe

5th September 2014

I couldn't believe it. My mum. She was gone.

And I hope you know, that it won't let go... It sticks around with you until the day you die...

****

9th September

Its, no sorry, was my mum's birthday today. I'm curled up on the couch. I smell and look like shit. I'm drunk. I'm high. Oasis soothes me in the background. I stare at the wall, my hands shaking on the bottle of whiskey. The joint does nothing for my shakes like it usually does.

HEY STAY YOUNG AND INVINCIBLE CAUSE WE KNOW JUST WHAT WE ARE, CAUSE COME WHAT MAY WE'RE UNSTOPPABLE, CAUSE WE KNOW JUST WHAT WE ARE...

People have been banging on my door all day but I've locked myself in, I just turn the music up louder. Mum where the fuck are you?

If I'm to fall, would you be there to applaud? Or would you hide behind them all? Because if I have to go, in my heart you'd grow and that's where you belong...

****

10th September

It's the funeral. I mean its been. I mean. I don't know. But I was there.

She had a saltire on her coffin. Braveheart theme played. O Flower Of Scotland. Rod Stewart. Other music I chose. People saying their piece. Punching my dad in the face after he turned up. He shouldn't have fucking been there and everyone knew it! She specifically asked for him not be there, multiple times when she was alive and everyone knew it and went against her wishes. They're fuckers. The whole fucking lot of them. I don't need any of them. Fucking fucks.

I sang a song that I wrote for her. I was sober and clean today, I made a good effort to give her the proper send off she deserved. My hands wouldn't stop shaking as I stood (standing? shit I'm still here). Standing up to the microphone. The place is packed.

"Hold my hand,

I wish you would

Chase these fears

God, I wish you could

Its all the same

We say one thing

Mean another

I love you

you were my hero

you always will be

but I never got to tell you

no more wait and see

its not the same

I mean it now

I mean it forever

I love you

I'll never forget you

or your cups of tea

and the way everything was all right

the way it was meant to be..." Something like that. Theres more but I can't bring myself to continue. Gareth gets up. He comes over as I stand staring at them all, glaring.

"You fuckers didn't care about her when she was alive and now you're like sympathy vultures in death." I growl into the microphone as my words echo and bounce off the walls. He wraps an arm around my shoulders and I shrug him off, glaring at certain people, many look away, unable to keep eye contact. Disgusting fuckers. There's my sister Kellie, who stole and lied to my mother and chose my father, not hers, her father is Charlie, over our mother. Same for my sister Michelle. There's great uncle Steven, who let my mothers father beat her. Did nothing to help her. I walk up to her coffin, its closed and I bend down, tenderly giving it a kiss and rest my hand on it.

"I will love you until the day I die," I whisper and walk out, up the aisle, feeling peoples eyes avert to the floor as I storm passed in my leather jacket, tan steal toe caps and black dress. I spark up a joint halfway along but no one stops me.

HEY STAY YOUNG AND INVINCIBLE CAUSE WE KNOW JUST WHAT WE ARE, CAUSE COME WHAT MAY WE'RE UNSTOPPABLE, CAUSE WE KNOW JUST WHAT WE ARE...

No one comes near me as I walk out, they know I'm right. They know its all too fucking late.

Catch the wheel that breaks the butterfly, I cried the rain that fill the ocean wide. I tried to talk with God to no avail, calling Him in and out of nowhere I said if you won't save me please don't waste my time...

****

15th September

Time passes by in a haze. I drink a lot. I smoke a lot. Family and friends pass by, trying to wake me from my stupor. They stop coming eventually.

HEY STAY YOUNG AND INVINCIBLE CAUSE WE KNOW JUST WHAT WE ARE, CAUSE COME WHAT MAY WE'RE UNSTOPPABLE, CAUSE WE KNOW JUST WHAT WE ARE...

I heard something vaguely about give her space. I don't sleep anymore, more just pass out when I've had too much to drink. I hate my dreams and the weed and booze kills them. Fuck them.

HEY STAY YOUNG AND INVINCIBLE CAUSE WE KNOW JUST WHAT WE ARE, CAUSE COME WHAT MAY WE'RE UNSTOPPABLE, CAUSE WE KNOW JUST WHAT WE ARE...

I don't fucking need them. Ol' Mr Daniels, nicotine and weed are my only friends now. I don't want anything or anyone else.

It's hard enough sitting there! Rockin in your Rockin Chair! It's all too much to take when you're not there...

****

19th September

HEY STAY YOUNG AND INVINCIBLE CAUSE WE KNOW JUST WHAT WE ARE, CAUSE COME WHAT MAY WE'RE UNSTOPPABLE, CAUSE WE KNOW JUST WHAT WE ARE...

Lawyers. Something about a lot of money coming my way.

HEY STAY YOUNG AND INVINCIBLE CAUSE WE KNOW JUST WHAT WE ARE, CAUSE COME WHAT MAY WE'RE UNSTOPPABLE, CAUSE WE KNOW JUST WHAT WE ARE...

And we cheat and we lie, nobody says its wrong so we don't ask why, cause it's all just the same at the end of the day, throwing it all away...

****

19th September

Having to explain the brew my inheritance. They give me grievance time off. They know I'm drunk and totally out my box high but I guess they're gonna let it slide.

HEY STAY YOUNG AND INVINCIBLE CAUSE WE KNOW JUST WHAT WE ARE, CAUSE COME WHAT MAY WE'RE UNSTOPPABLE, CAUSE WE KNOW JUST WHAT WE ARE...

Home. This fucking house. Everywhere I look I see her. I can't even sit in the chair we used to fight over. Its relatively tidy apart from my bit. The table is covered in empty bottles, empty glasses, skins, broken cigarettes, scraps of paper covered in writing, tobacco, weed... I don't care. I don't care about fucking anything. I go into the kitchen with my bags of booze, pulling out 2 bottles of whiskey and a bottle of gin.

HEY STAY YOUNG AND INVINCIBLE CAUSE WE KNOW JUST WHAT WE ARE, CAUSE COME WHAT MAY WE'RE UNSTOPPABLE, CAUSE WE KNOW JUST WHAT WE ARE...

I throw the fags I bought and the tobacco, finally throwing the baggies of weed on the living room table, walking through with the bottle of gin and drinking from it thirstily. I never want to be sober ever again. I never want to feel ever again.

HEY STAY YOUNG AND INVINCIBLE CAUSE WE KNOW JUST WHAT WE ARE, CAUSE COME WHAT MAY WE'RE UNSTOPPABLE, CAUSE WE KNOW JUST WHAT WE ARE...

I turn on the TV and put music on, the only thing I still want to feel. Liam Gallagher's voice floods out and I close my eyes, flopping on the floor and smoking a cigarette. I choke back tears and sit up, drinking harshly from the gin and rolling a blunt. I smoke it so quickly I choke but I soon feel the familiar numb flow through my brain and I can finally ignore everything.

When you're lonely and you start to hear the little voices in your head at night, you will only sniff away the tears so you can dance until the morning light, but at what price?...