Stop

I’d like to make a backup of my life
so that I can start again from here
if, for example, I piss off my wife
or sickness strikes the ones that I hold dear.

Or if I face a forced redundancy
or get caught with my mitten in the till
or simply sink with the economy
and reach a day when I can’t pay the bill.

I’d keep it locked inside the biscuit tin
and just the knowledge it was safely hid
would guarantee that I will always win
free rein to do the things I never did.

I’d start by baking chocolate layer cake
then scoff the whole thing topped with triple cream.
I’d dive from high into a frozen lake
and take the shock without a single scream.

I’d spoon the peanut butter on my toast
and throw the jar in the uncycling bin
then phone up all my enemies and boast
how we could have a fight and I would win.

I’d pinch the bum of Susan in accounts
and then explain that feminism’s done
while drinking gin in ludicrous amounts
and playing roulette with a loaded gun.

But when I found it all got out of hand
and hedonism wasn’t all its cracked
up to be but a sham, a phoney land
I reach out for the life I’d safely backed

up. Hidden on the dusty kitchen shelf.
Then I’d restore my old life from the tin
slip on the garment of my former self
and live the way I do, devoid of sin.