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The Final Year book cover
POEMS
Created: 7th May, 2024

Oh, so ya wanna know about The Beast, right?

OK     so     it first happened in Year 2

though Mum says I was always throwin tantrums

when I was proper little

but on this day summat happened to spark it

to release it

can’t even remember what it was

someone nicked my pencil maybe

or a push in the line

on the way back from assembly.

 

All I remember          is          from

somewhere really deep down in me

I feel a darkness risin          but like a hot darkness

like fire and smoke all mixed together

and my fists are flames

and the next thing I know          I’m curled up in

the Sunshine Room     cryin and cold

and, man, I’m tired          so tired

and my teacher Miss Nolan’s rubbin my back and

the whole room’s in bits          the whole world is.

 

I’d been carried out the classroom with a chunk of

some poor kid’s ponytail in my hand.

 

It happened again a week later          so they

got Mum in and she had to come to meetings at

school to talk about     my issues   and then I had

to go see this woman every week,     Miss Hough,

a counsellor,          to     talk     and     draw

and find a way to keep The Beast at bay.

 

Two years it took us.          Two years of talkin

and drawin and learnin to breathe in a way that let

me control that beast, rather than it controllin me.

 

So if ya see me startin to breathe

in a strange way right,          I in’t crazy or nothin.

 

I’m self-regulatin,          innit.

 

© Matt Goodfellow from The Final Year (Otter-Barry Books)

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'Oh, so ya wanna know about The Beast, right?' by Matt Goodfellow

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