I'M Entitled Poem by Sue Stone

Mother was a coke freak.
Don’t know if Dad’s alive
D’ you know what it’s like
To get yourself up
And dressed for school, aged five.

Not much chance of breakfast
no subs for lunch at school
So the other kids stared
and laughed in my face
Free dinners just weren’t cool.

Never got the right kit
There’s no-one home to care
Kids would snigger out loud
I smelled of damp clothes
and no one’d brushed my hair.

No reassuring glance;
a loving welcome gaze.
No nod of approval
or cherished touch of hand
sweet unspoken praise

Bought the Cardiff bed spread
And latest shirt I’d seen,
And that’s all very well,
though nothing that mattered,
like discipline, routine.

Got myself a mobile
The trainers that I chose,
Between us being skint,
from the frequent cocaine
she snorted up her nose

Yeh, I’m stoned at weekends?
I’m smoking hash all day
With money that I nicked
From some bloke I thumped.
Well someone’s got to pay

I never had nothing
and now it’s pay back time.

I’m entitled to that much.