I
Eventually I got so used to the sight of his shit that I forgot what it was like to live a normal life any more. It got to the stage that I was frightened to go out in case I found something I couldn't handle any more when I got home from the shops. Was there anything between us at that point? No, I don't think so. Why are you even asking me that? Surely you must know that it was a lost cause by then. I couldn't take any more so one day I came home and put the shopping away, made myself some tea and stuck a breadknife into him. In some ways I was doing him a favour as much as I was doing it for myself. Deep down I knew he resented himself as much as he resented me doing all this for him. It's the same way he hated his mother and father and he came to look upon me the exact same way eventually. Yeah I felt sorry for him, but love? No. That went many years ago, a long time. You can't feel the same way about someone when you are wiping their arse every day of the week, can you?
II
I don't really know what happened. It was all a bit of a blur really. We had been out drinking and then we started an argument about something, no idea what it was all about, really. Probably football or music or girls or something. Any excuse really. So he hit me first I think. Or maybe I hit him. Anyway he fell backwards and he hit his head on the kerbstone and he sort of made a groaning noise and sort of arched his back and then he just stopped moving and I didn't know what to do. I mean he's a mate but I knew I'd be in big trouble so I ran off to Sutars where I stayed until I saw the flashing lights about an hour or a bit later and then I sort of walked out afterwards even though I said nothing to anyone else and that was it really. It was all a big accident and we were both really guilty of it but he should have known better because everyone out there knows I have a short fuse and if they get in my way then I'm going to lash out or something so really it was as much him as it was me.
III
Look, I don't know what I'm doing here. I just know that I got into a bit of bother at work and that I might have taken some money on a loan from the petty cash. I was always going to put it back and I never wanted to be labelled as a thief or anything like that. I just got desperate because my wife is so ill and my kids are a constant bother to me and that I don't know where to turn. Yes, I know I have been drinking too much these days and that I have lost my way a bit but I'm still the same person I have always been underneath it all. I'm at the end of my rope, I really am. I don't know where to turn for help. It all seems so hopeless to me. Just last night I say with a mug filled to the brim with whisky and a bunch of pills and thought that I should just slip on through and leave all of this but I know I couldn't do that to my wife because she'd have nowhere else to turn to and she'd be alone and no one would be there for her and she'd die alone somewhere and that would kill me on its own.
IV
My life has fallen apart for a year now. I can't help the way I am with her, I really can't. I need help I know but I can't speak to anyone about this because it's all too dark to think about. My wife left me years ago because of this but she said nothing. She's a diamond, she is. She knows how hard this is for me but she can't understand it any more than you can and I can't explain myself any more than queer guys can explain the way they are or a duck can explain why it's a duck, you know what I mean. She means so much to me. My wife, yes. And also her. I can't forgive myself and I can't forgive the way I feel or explain it but there's something there between us, like a bridged gap or link that we can't speak about but which we both know is there. And she's really mature for her years, but I must have misjudged the timing or the circumstances or something because when it happened there was more behind it than I was thinking about and I must have not understood her or she wasn't able to tell me how she was feeling too and I got it all wrong and I feel so stupid.
A playlist for the album can be found here.
Titles conceived, composed, arranged and performed by Mike Dickson
(c) 2026, Black Cat Music Factory