Thoughts lead to feelings
Feelings lead to pain
Agonising screenings
Ice picks to the brain
The body coils in defence
Hollow but for fear
Frozen feelings too intense
Old memories still near
Sudden, without warning
Or lured back to mind’s eye
A mind and body warring
No real threat nearby
Just another flashback
Replayed on repeat
Frozen pain on playback
Cues the body to retreat
Steven Shorrock (2018)
Sunny afternoon
Street machete attack!
Running draped in blood
The look of terror
And the look of fury
A murder in the making
On these Liverpool Streets
What is your story
Oh shirtless man
Did you reap your revenge
Or turn your back
On this savage world
Steven Shorrock (2018)
Worn out, blown out
Spinning into terror
Looking back at the fast lane
Through snapshots of horror
Overtaking him at speed
You still had lots to learn
A rock, a hole, a fault, who knows?
And now which way to turn?
At eighty miles an hour
It’s no easy decision
Heading east, facing west
A tailgater’s eyes in vision
Veering backwards to the barrier
Braced for impact, no airbag
Scraping, screeching, metal on metal
A wretched noise, a car dragged
Sitting now mid-motorway
For how long, who can know
The police arrive, the road is blocked
In shock, you have to go
Return home to a man bereaved
No sympathy to give
You escaped with mental scars
Another day to live
A family swerved another death
Worse things have occurred
You’re here to drive some journeys still
But they won’t be as they were
Steven Shorrock (2018)
Not yet awake
Tears streaming
Onto white cotton
No sound of sobbing
Just a wet pillow case
And the gravity of loss
Pulling me to consciousness
What is it? What’s wrong?
It’s happened again
It happens in my sleep
Everyone has died
Everyone I love
Every night, someone new
They all die in my dreams
Steven Shorrock (2018)
Driving through rain
The night before that morning
Juggernaut tears blur the black road
Three hundred miles over wailing hills
Driving near death
A round trip to remember
To wake to the news
The worst possible news
From a kindly old man
The bedroom door opens
“It’s your Mum
She’s passed away”
The bedroom door closes
She died in her sleep
She died in your sleep
Do you regret your flight?
Could you not sit with your fright?
Because now you return
To a family decimated
Spokes with no hub
Everything’s changed, forevermore
Darkest years now to follow
Steven Shorrock (2018)
White baby rabbit by the forest path
Dead and perfect
Nestled in autumn leaves
A lucky escape
Or a fate worse than life
Tormented by day
And haunted by night
As darkness sheds light
On anguish so deep
So personalised
How many years have passed?
Don’t think, don’t calculate
Thinking brings feeling
And years of lost memories
With no right to tears or regret
Steven Shorrock (2018)
Chase them! Chase them!
We’ll get our revenge
These rats have no respect for us
But crimes must be avenged
Winding into cul de sacs
Justice must be served
But on these wild Manchester streets
Horrors must be swerved
The rats have gone, they’ve disappeared
To places cars can’t drive
And now we’re trapped in cul de sacs
With nowhere left to hide
We disembark the Volvo car
One window smashed for hate
To neighbours waiting on their steps
This was a big mistake
A shotgun! A shotgun!
A double-barrelled warning
Get back in the car and go
Or you won’t see the morning
These divided city streets
Aren’t what you used to know
Trapped in this workless cul de sac
To die, for a broken window
Steven Shorrock (2018)
PTSDays 