What Have I Done? Poem by Mad Gone

Somehow, it never really started to happen at one precise moment.
I could not say yes, I remember that was when it started.
It wasn’t as if I suddenly jumped up out of bed and felt this way.
Instead it crept up on me it was a slow decay, tearing away at my insides.
Had I always been this way?
Yea I probably was.
I saw it clearly in my daughter the other evening while driving home from shopping. She had become me! My god there was no hope, a granny before her time.
Her face would surely crackle should it bare a smile;
Even a slight upturn might do serious damage.
It was at this moment I knew I would have to act upon it.
Since then it has been building and building, almost now at bursting point.
I can not wantonly or hardly contain it.

On one occasion I remember seeing it.
It was when I had deserted the hen party in Edinburgh,
gone my own solitary way as I was often prone.
There in the cobbled, dishevelled back streets I saw it for the first time.
A young well built woman, about twenty five years old and of fair complexion,
boldly done what I had not done before.
She walked confidently now as my memory serves,
up the hill towards a small bistro dining area,
outside of what appeared to be a very old church building.
Passing just by me as many others unremarkably had done only moments before. Then it happened, quite clearly and not murmured or restrained but a definite voice.
It sang so joyously “The hills are alive to the sound of music”.
I turned to find the direction not sure if in shock or bewilderment.
A radiant light shone from the young women’s face, it was such a beautiful moment. I feel sure I will never forget the image.
Here was I that timid and unadventurous girl walking beside this ray of sunshine.
She made me feel ALIVE!

I have often thought that I could do this, but the words won’t come out.
I fear criticism, embarrassment, would I be locked up.
Then I got to thinking it depended on where you done it.
Was Molly Malone off her trolley when she sung her ‘cockles and muscles? ’
through the streets of Dublin both wide and narrow?
Was this young girl insane?
Should we have got a snugly fitting white jacket with pretty buckles for her?
That was when I realised what I had slowly become – BORING!
There is no other word that best describes it.
No more was I that mischievous, carefree child.
The one in the Brownie photograph pretending to strangle the little brownie in front. You know the one, that one without the uniform on,
even though they had warned us the week before.
No more was I one of those crazy seventeen year olds,
who ran around the mall pretending to be aeroplanes after coming from college.
What had happened to me, where had she gone?
I can’t remember setting her down and not picking her up again.

Where were the dreams now, why did I think I was remarkable back then,
what was it once that made me believe I could do and achieve anything.
Ignore those old idiots when they tell you to slow down,
what they could tell me, I was invincible, immortal and indestructible.
What saddens me the most it knowing that my daughter will never be that daft,
To play aeroplanes on the mall at twelve years old never mind seventeen.
That she will never want to open up her lungs and sing
‘the hills are alive with the sound of music’ at the top of her voice.
Then the penny dropped,
It was me, who would tell her to calm down when acting like a fool,
It was me who told her to sit up at the table properly.
It was of course me that had often told her to grow up,
and try to act her age not her shoe size.

Oh, what had I done!