Bird

Never met a man so uncomfortable in his own skin
and I love him.
That makes me a nutter. Didn't work that out for myself-
I've been told enough times.

I'm not saying he shouldn't be in there. And I don't know the half of it, what he gets up to. But he's not a bad person.
Not really.

Institutionalisation, he calls it. Reading all these books.
Coming out with all these big ideas. Thinks he's going to set the world on fire.
Then he's back on it.
Back inside within twelve months. That's how it goes.
Though, we did have two and a half years together once.

And that mate of his, Terry, he doesn't exactly help. Coming round at all hours giving it big the one, gobbing off, making out he's some sort of master mind. His schemes and that and then they're off out, on buisness they say, well he must think I'm soft or something.
Think I must be. Look at me.

Some of them say, oh they don't want no help,
say there's no, what is it? Incentive.
say they're getting an easy ride on our taxes, but
what sort of country is this?
Where young men would rather be inside?

He could be waking up next to me.
Coffee and smokes in bed.
Breeze from the open window on our skin...
All for the sake of a Playstation and three square meals?
That don't add up.

Not like they say it does.
They make it too black and white, too simple, like.
But it never was simple, not for us.
Always something, something missing.

The papers, the politicians..there's something missing in the way they put it.
Who's pissed of with their lot?
Who's had enough?
Well go and blame it on the cons, blame it on the gyppos,
no, blame it on the foreigners
and them terrorists and the hoodies
and the druggies and all them on the sick.
Seems to keep things ticking over that way
but no-one's sure if we're meant to be grateful for the education.

Next door, she's waiting for her son to come back from Iraq.
He's a hero no doubt.
I'm not bitter.
I wish them all the best.
I really do.

But I know what people round here are like.
Now I've started showing.
I know they're totting up the months
Giving it the chit-chat, second guessing:
How long's he been in? ….How far gone d'yer reckon she is?
Obscene, that is.

Twelve or thirteen, we were in the playground kicking shins, stealing sweets.
First kiss, first fag, first toke...
Within three years he's on the run for God-knows-what
And I'm about eight weeks gone.

But we've stuck it out,
thick and thin, better for worse and all that
more than you can say for most people these days.
Funny sort of achievement, that is.