Patrick, 17, 1997

Akira The Don, 16, just moved from living in Wales on my own

To Redditch with my man's sister

But I dissed her, moved out

Lodging with this ex-drug addict called Sharon and Sharon's baby daughter

I couldn't afford to

Pay the 60 bar rent

So I thought that I'd better get a little bit bent

By which I mean crooked

Criminal, sometimes sorta like a animal

Theiving, leaving greiving women and

Matter of factly

Also for a while I worked in factories
One made boxes, one made bits of cars, one made locks

And one made food for Little Chef

The people, rude, would regularly defecate

In the sauces, I packed the stuff in boxes, 12 hour shift and they're freezing me, beer and beating some geezer

Anyway, Patrick, Nirvana obsessive

Shoulder length bleached blonde hair and a speed habbit

He sang lead in a band called Aurora

They used to tour a bit around the Midlands

I met Patrick outside Our Price on the steps

Sat next to the rest of the greasers

We took speed that Easter

For the first time

We did the first rap outside, out back, of the Kingfisher Shopping Centre
That was that

Catch me round his flat, smoking crap butt end roll ups

We'd stay up all week

Four am, we'd walk the streets collecting dirty nubs

Just a pair of dirty scrubs

Patrick needed lots of love, an only child without a Dad

He had a mother, but she had

Gone a bit

Mad

She was sad - her boyfriend burnt her house down while she was inside

And left her bleeding from her head, for dead

He had a knife she said

She had a life she said
And Patrick nearly had a wife

And Patrick nearly took his life

I found him bleeding on the railway bridge

Outside, five minutes from The Cross

We took him to the hospital

Spittle flecked his chin

And he sprayed

Blood over the desk when they checked him in

I left him in

And I went home, on my own

Fashioned me a microphone, out of headphones

I felt like that bit when Father Ted phoned Father Whatshisface

I can't remember

But I remember

One September, or was it August?

I took Pat back to my Mam's house

In North Wales

Gales, cliffs and stony beaches, Patrick's not for speeches

But his face beseeches

Why wasn't I raised here?

Sheep and cows and deer, instead of child abuse and fear

I might have shed a tear

But within a year

I was fucking his ex - what'd you expect?

He took the piss - that was then and this is now

We both did things that were wrong and ugly

Stole and I lied

And I didn't ever expect him to do what he did to me

Or me to him

Then again

And again

And I never knew you could do that with a friend or do that to a friend

Cold, controlling, plotting, begotten and rotten to the core

Can't see a soul no more

What's it all for...

Shut the door, pass the draw, pick the crumbs up off the floor

Drink the dregs, drown the voices in your head

I'd kind of like to go to bed, but it's gotten light

Instead I'll hang on to the night

And draw the curtain

Who says that stuff has to worsen?

Pat's a nurse

And I am Akira The Don