Can´t sleep, afraid to dream
Can´t wake, too tired for lack of sleep
Can´t love for fear of losing
Losing you because I can no longer love

Days turned upside down
No focus, no structure
Time disappears without recollection
I plan so much, but achieve so little

Ironclad exterior, jelly at the core
The mask is all that binds me
I struggle to mouth the truth
Do you really want to hear my story?

Crying in my dreams, transported back to `82
The gorse and peat are still burning
Lanolin, smoke and cordite
The smells offend my nostrils

Every year I´m carried back, an eternal bond
Goose Green, a brief but violent visit
Yet vivid in my thoughts
Do they think of me, as I of them?

I lost it once in `85, it only cost my marriage
A minimal price some would say, a glitch
An aberration, that’s life, it happens!
Replaced the lid and carried on

I have a life, but not worth living
Invasive thoughts of death
A simple task to end it all
A struggle to maintain control

Feelings of dysfunction
Arms and legs, diminished feeling
Pain radiating throughout a ravaged body
Saddened eyes holding back tears

I could cry, but would anyone hear me
I will not show my weakness
A sense of pride holds me tight
Duty refuses to give up

The second time was `95
I thought the end was due
But no, I found the lid once more
Renewed the armour against the world

Then, alcohol induced psychosis
A comfortable friend
Long nights without reality
An empty, numb existence

In `02 life became a blur
A mystic fusion of realities
Raging heartbeat in my ears
Control, a seldom luxury

Struggle to maintain reality
A desire to own my fears
Fear of owning anything at all
Life without an existential meaning

If I cried, you’d see me bared
Undressed and naked as a child
I want to share my feelings
But would you survive the deluge?

I am tired, middle aged and marking time
A half lived post war dream
Years fit snugly into thoughts
A lifetime translated into moments

Now the final bureaucratic humiliation
An intimate inquisition, irrefutable proof of life
Ill and tired of repetition, I want to rest
To be finished, 25 years on