Like a sack left on the shelf,

Don’t think I need your chattering.

I’m listening to myself.

Hold! Stop! Don’t pity me!

Hold! Stop your sympathy!

Understanding if you got it,

Otherwise I’ll do without it!

When my bones are stiff and aching,

And my feet won’t climb the stair,

I will only ask one favour:

Don’t bring me no rocking chair.

When you see me walking, stumbling,

Don’t study and get it wrong.

‘Cause tired don’t mean lazy

And every goodbye ain’t gone.

I’m the same person I was back then,

A little less hair, a little less chin,

A lot less lungs and much less wind.

But ain’t I lucky I can still breathe in.

I don’t mean talking

I don’t mean chats,

I mean when words are walking

All over the page.

Then they’re hard

they’re bats

I’m in a rage.

Letters are mad things

they swirl about

daft as brushes

in and out

they won’t stay in the book

they stops, they they rushes

there goes one! Look!

I’m think carefully how

I might just catch an ‘a’

I think I’ve seen one now –

But zaaaaaap. It flew AwAy.

I’m going to creep up sneakily

Now watch , as I lasso a ‘b’

MayBe if I tread carefully

I can make it Be friends with me.

But it’s gone, see?

It’s gone all hazy

into a ‘d’

No NO NO I’m not lazy

It isn’t me

THe ALpHaBEt is crazy.

It needs to be locked up

all of it, yeh, all twenty six

letters, to stop their tricks.

Catch them now! Do it quick

Before they all split.

Lock them up and chain them

knock them down and brain them

tame them and restrain them

put them in a border

put them all in order

they make me sick.

My teacher’s sighing

my mum’s crying

I ain’t lying

I am trying.

But I’m about done with reading

I don’t think it’s reading I’m needing

It’s racing and chasing

and rushing and swirling

and gushing and whirling

and floating and roaring.

Just like letters.

But better.