A stuffy head, a weak body, a year to the day since the split
I needed some peace
Fred was in the other room with his spoilt son
I’d just settled down
I opened the first page of Viz
BANG
the door exploded open.

Fred’s wife was ON FIRE showing me the dress she’d just bought
She spread it in the air.

‘How much?’

‘Two hundred and forty euros?’

‘No’

Her Filipino seamstress friend appeared.
Me and seamstress talked about the job she was going to do on the dress.
Fred’s wife burst into the room again
’Twenty five euro’.
I’m convinced women invented weddings,
but anyway,

Fred’s wife and seamstress disappeared upstairs
and with them, the wedding planning noise

Seamstress’s husband lectured Fred in the other room
on how to repair the running machine I’d broken.

’A fella like you, who likes his football, could be doing twenty minutes a night on it’
Fred said ’Yeah’ when he was allowed.

I struggled with the brown bread and prayed for it all to end.
I knew the only way I could avoid prison
was to live on my own

forever.