July 24th 1997, and I still hate it

The thing that it left with me

A decaying piece of charred meat

That will never belong to me

Something I continue to abhor

I still can not accept as mine



The hatred should be at them

Because they took it away

Killed what was my life

Destroyed everything I knew

They ignited the flame

That devoured my flesh



Not knowing what happened

But the nightmare still remains

For three months I suffered

So much in this World

Seemed also to be happening

As I faced a hospital bed



Wet Wet Wet did a version of Yesterday

Princess Diana died that August

My partner rarely came to see me

I found myself using a wheelchair

Terrified by horrible dreams

Where they still came for me



Then came the time to go home

I feared about leaving the safety

Of a place full of caring nurses

But that day would arrive

Having to live with the shock

When I first saw what was done



Home, finding out she cheated

Slept with a family friend

Her reason was so simple

She didn't want to sleep

With the way I was disabled

Not able to accept the leg



So I drank, almost attempting suicide

Anything and everything I took

But it never blocked it out

Still she found other lovers

My children gave me reason

To keep on living each day



The writing became my therapy

Finding the release through words

Giving freedom to those feelings

Some I thought were forgotten

Still finding it harder to cope

It was not mine, take the leg away



So what did these years bring me?

Apart from refusing to want this scarred monster

That seems to be attached forever to my soul

A bitter memory etched in torment and pain

Each anniversary is a walk through Hell

Where everything was a ripple effect



If I had stayed home on that night

Then this would not be my fate

Part of me is in fear of that

For would this poet had been born?

Created from the flames of agony

To try to find himself in life



Partners have come and gone

Sanity was almost lost at times

where I dwelt in my own fantasy

Refusing to accept what was real

It cost me a treasured friendship

But I learnt the value of that lesson



For seven years I have not drank

But have suffered the edge of madness

I almost lost this woman, close to me now

She forgave the strangeness in my mind

Now she makes me stronger each day

But the Anniversary in Hell nevergoes away



copyright Chris Smith 2012 (Bearing a tortured soul)