Self Help

He looked at me, suggesting I'd
Just spilled my coffee on his mum
A woman who had lately died
From drinking too much knock-off rum

I hadn't had I? Who's to say?
I surely thought it were not so
But I had drunk a lot today
So wasn't sure that I did know

These are the perils, thought I then
Of making friends with drunken fools
You follow blindly these daft men
(Become disorderly in schools)

Are asked to leave, then ordered so
And walk away feeling ashamed
Until a court says you must go
Where you are told you're not to blame

'Stand up son and tell us now
What it is, your name has been
For all the years you've been allowed
To wander through these pastures green'

Responding as you have been bred
You give the answer that they know
But all the caffeine you've been fed
Encourages your legs to go

You chance to sit but are encouraged
To explain your present stage
(A yellow t-shirt stained with porridge
Surely gives those facts away)

'I've come along a good old way'
You tremble as you tell this lie
'And I am happy as I say
I feel as though I might be dry'

The gathered group muster applause
Too bleary eyed to catch you out
You go to sit, a pregnant pause
Suggests there may be one in doubt

An older girl, as red as you
With vodka lips and rummy stare
Can see a way, in fact right through
Your story as it lingers there

She leans right in and whispers so
(In doing this, she wets your ear)
'There's only one thing to let go'
She says 'And that my love is fear'

Now as you ponder this advice
Under such cacophonous shouts
You think at least she weren't your wife
And you're not father to these louts

She was the one who understood
But matrimony never came
It wouldn't have done any good
For both of you were drunk and lame

But in the time you spent with her
You never ever met her sons
It took her return to the earth
For you to see why she chose rum