stuck in the middle of nowhere recalling 'Billy Liar'

thinking Billy Liar

 

why can’t I be happy

like Julie Christie

stepping from a  lorry cab

to a peppy soundtrack flute

carefree- hair swinging loose?

 

my lift’s dropped me

in the Midlands,

 

Redditch? Hanley?

Burslem? Longton?

 

I’m knackered,

no grub, no digs,

pubs are shut

no cigarettes

 

I’ve no friend to ring and ask,

‘can you come and pick me up?’

 

I only wanted love,

to live in love,

share it with you,

get a little back

 

knowing you were mine

and I was yours,

would turn my life

to wondrous -

I’d skip along broken streets

like Julie Christie

that day she changed the world

 

winter nights, warm duvets

a lover’s breath brushing my face

wondering at her night sighs,

mutterings, and giggles

as the picture house inside her head

runs ‘one night only’ movie reels

 

our lives were suffocated

by the pain we inflicted

struggling to gain the ‘upper hand’,

constant bickering quenched the light

of that high and holy land -

the dreamscape we created,

 

you, me, kids, a family

 

how did it come to this?

not even a barbed-wire ‘so long’ kiss

 

she called me bastard,

I called her bitch

 

we should have settled for

easy coming, easy going,

casual indifference –

 

we chose love and tasted bitterness   

 

I did not want to hurt her

she tried not to hurt me

we did it anyway

 

God may forgive us for the sins we committed

breaking free of the others' clutches…

 

we can never forgive one another.

 

[apologies for attenuation - try as I might it will not appear as I submitted it]