Life and Fire

(North Earl Street Series)

You appeared behind us

just as I was being robbed,

a cigarette glowing in the dark,
anger already in your voice.

You drove them away
with a cold fury
that left no room for argument.

Then you sat down
in a cloud of smoke
and started explaining the world to me.

You were like me,
but turned up too high,
every feeling amplified.

Angry at the world,
confused by it,
afraid of it too.

But where I went quiet,
you spoke.

You used your fear
to argue with the world,
to challenge it,
to demand better from it.

You shepherded me through difficult days,
fed me when I had little,
tried in a hundred small ways
to make my life better.

You would stop in the middle of a street
to tell the world off.

Sometimes it felt
as though you were carrying on
a lifelong argument with existence itself.

I remember the chicken you cooked for us,
and the guards calling around,
wanting to know
why you were so cross.

I remember being badly sick,
nothing helping,
and you sat me down
with noodle soup
and refused to let me avoid it.

You were a fireball
of fear,
of anger,
of compassion.

All the things that burned inside you
burned for other people too.

I worried for you then.

I still do.

You were my friend.

And wherever life has carried you,
I hope you found some peace,
without losing the fierce heart
that once stepped out of the darkness,
cigarette in hand,
and stood between me and harm.