This Life can Kill You

Someone has died, you did not know him well
but the man is your friend’s father,
It gets you thinking about all that he told you.

What does it all add up to ?

An angry man spat his virus of mean words
on to his wife. In the ring, a boxer said
is where the addiction starts.
You get to feel so powerful.

I just like to fight, I came from fighting

You think of your friend driving to the funeral
in the falling rain, how all the times
he just wanted his dad to die,

to stop punching him,
just to fucking leave me alone,
for fucks sake. Nothing

is ever as easy as closing a door
and leaving it closed. The last time
you see them alive pray you know
it’s the last, that you say goodbye,

and take them in their battered
unfinished form
away with you forever.

Copyright Naomi Woddis 2008