I was there

I was there

Drawn back across the years

To the birthing place

The formative experience

The youthful embrace

Discovering sex

Underarm hair

Deodorant

Finding love and heartbreak

Go hand in hand.

Even though everything is different

Nothing has changed

The old house remains,

Lacking significance

So small

In aspiration

I never saw poverty

As a disease

We were equally infected

Tethered

To a bedrock

Of working-class values

Held together

With broken shoelaces

And patchwork clothes

Before it became fashionable

To dress down.

We wore our hearts

Frayed on sleeves.

So small

Were my dreams

Of childhood escape,

Was I so very different

To all the rest?

The faces I see

Are unrecognisable

As mine is to them

And why would I care

Sitting in an electric car,

Baby, you’re a rich man now,

Curtains twitch

Just as they always did

And strangers

Move inside

Narrow gauged rooms

Where once we laughed

And cried.

Blood brothers

Soul sisters

Sworn to be together

Forever

Long since lived

And long since died