Hard To Swallow

This is always the worst part. As you pass the park, the street dissolves into little more than an alley. It's here I was born, here between the clothes-lines and the chipped brickwork of some long-forgotten Minister For Housing. "Let's abolish the slums," and everyone agreed because it had to be done, no-brainer. But this ain't no concrete paradise, is it, Mr. Tory? It's a trackmark on the arm of the town, the stab wound in the gut of this body. Broken glass battles with broken teeth to pave the street, the council saved on paint by using human blood. I was young when the first riots tore through here, but old enough to remember how many didn't come back round here for while. Second time round I was there, placing the barricades and torching something.... something. Last time round I'd got out, gone straight, got a job that wasn't going to last when they saw me on the telly, sticking up for the people I knew, putting the boot in for a cause that no longer involved me. I should have known that some causes ain't worth fighting for....
I step over a beggar, in his eyes it's just like a disease, I worry it might be contagious by looking into them but I can't move now. I've seen the scar. It flows through his right cheek like a border line on a map, vivid as a laser and yet I see some beauty in that. There are things I can't bear to look at that people call lovely. Flowers. Flowers remind me of someone I used to know. The stars remind me of death, of alienation and despair. Yet something in that cheek symbolises a happiness I used to have.... I was seven, it was my birthday. Someone comes homes and we're all crying and hugging and happy.... who is that, though? Dad, is it you? I'm crying now and a bottle smashes beside my feet.