Living Like A Man With A Broken Spine Poem by Colin Coplin

Bookends, bookends when we were side by side
Identical bookends, we knew each other line by line

I went walking through the rain
To hide my tears and wash my jeans/hair
You know without you the worlds so cold
I can’t cook and never learned to sew

I didn't plan to love you
No I didn't even try
I didn't plan to love you
I'm living now with a broken spine / I'm living life without my spine

You came one night while I was away
Took things I cherished, to this very day
A thief takes things, they know not the value of
You took a piece of me, but left memory and dust

I didn't plan to love you
No I didn't even try
I didn't plan to love you
I'm living now with a broken spine / I'm living life without my spine

Our friends don't choose right from wrong
They don't come round now that you've gone
This is not how it was suppose to be
You untie the knot, but chained memory

I didn't plan to love you
No I didn't even try
I didn't plan to love you
I'm living now with a broken spine / I'm living life without my spine

I sleep (naked) on the floor
starring at the ceiling with no clothes on
I haven't left my bed in weeks
too scarred to wake from this nightmare sleep

I didn't plan to love you
No I didn't even try
I didn't plan to love you
I'm living now with a broken spine / I'm living life without my spine

Bookends, bookends when we were side by side
Identical bookends, we knew each other line by line

How can I have imagined our love would end like this
I could not have written a more painful ending to love's passion and bliss

Blank and empty without you there
Torn and frayed, the pages of my life now lie bare

Copyright Colin Coplin 1999 (updated 2011)