I’m Alright In Bed But I’m Better With A Pen

Hear the sound
The angels come screaming

I woke up. I don't know what woke me up, but I lay in bed, listening intently to work out if it had been some sort of noise. I laughed to myself. I was getting really paranoid now. I don't sleep heavily. And the fact I have a huge cut dpwn my stomach doesn't help. I had fallen earlier in the day and grated it on the pavement, typical me. Always falling over my feet. Not this time though. But I couldn't tell Gerard that. He'd be livid. But still, it could be the discomfort it was causing me that had woken me up. Did I really expect something to go bump in the night. Then I remembered what my brother had said a while back. "If you ver hear a noise in the night, go back to sleep. It's just the angels coming to take me to heaven to God can lecture me, then send me to hell... They'll be screaming so it'll be noisy but if you put your pillow over your head, it should drown it out." I thought he was crazy when he said it but now I realised he had been simply saying something that would make me chuckle if i heard something at night. He knew how my mind works, he always had, probably always will. "Gee?" I called out, looking for reassurance.

down your voice
I hear you've been bleeding

"Jeez... What is it? I was asleep there..." came the reply. He didn't sound mad, just sleepy. Well, I had just woken him up, so that wasn't surprising.
"Did you not hear that?"

"Shhhh... Let me listen..." There was a momentary silence as he listened to see if he could hear anything."I don't hear anything. Maybe it was your stomach..."

I looked down. Sure enough, my beige sheets were dark with fresh blood.
"It's been bleeding again. Not a great amount though. It's no big deal."

"Ok... Goodnight then."

"Goodnight."

Make your choice
They say you've been bleeding

I lay in bed, not able to get back to sleep, but too drowsy to do anything but lie there. I debated whether to tell Gerard about how my accident wasn't actually an accident. He'd want to know who had pushed me. But I couldn't say. Not because I was protecting the person. Because I genuienely hadn't seen them. Gerard wouldn't believe that though. He had taken it upon himself to look after me and protect me since he was all I had. It's true. Mom and Dad got killed i a car accident two years ago. Just after my 17th birthday.

Someone save us

It's been difficult and great at teh same time but recently he had to try and find a second job so that we don't have to give up the house. He got one too. And we're managing ,just, but part of me feels like we should get an appartment where the rent wouldn't be as high. Life seems so perfect at the minute. Too perfect.

Heaven help us now
Come crashing down
We'll hear the sound
As you're falling down

Next morning, I was awoken at 11.30. "Get up, Sleepyhead... It's almost afternoon."
I sat up, wincing as the positon hurt my stomach. I rubbed my eyes and remembered the dream I'd been having before I was woken up.

I'm at this old hotel
But can't tell if I've been breathing or sleeping
Or screaming or waiting for the man to call
And maybe all of the above

That hadn't been it though, it changed towards the end. To what happened yesterday. A faceless body shoving me to the ground. Only, the location was different and I had worse injuries.

Cause mostly I've been sprawled on these cathedral steps
While spitting out the blood and screaming

Gerard looked at me, with a worried look on his face. "I think we're going to have to move. We can't afford to stay here." I just nodded. In a sense, I had known this was coming. Gerard had been doing more and more overtime at both jobs. Getting up more and more early and going to bed later and later. I was worried he was going to burn himself out. "It's too difficult." I pulled him into a hug. The stubborn Geard who had been determined to keep the house was gone. He had reached burn out point.

Someone save us

I told you it was too perfect. I have this weird ability of correctly predictign when things were going to go wrong. Another point for Mikey. I sighed. It only gets harder from here, I thought glummly.

Heaven help us now
Come crashing down
We'll hear the sound
As you're falling down

Until, we find somewhere to live, Gerard is going to keep doing both jobs and he said a few friends said they would lend him money. It's a good job he's clean and sober now. Two years ago, after the accident, he had gone on a downward spiral. Into drink, drugs and depression. It broke my heart to watch but I was pretty much powerless to do anything. I only realised how bad things had got when he was found one night, passed out in an alley, not breathing. I was scared that I would lose him too, but good old Gerard got himself out of the mess and he's been clean and sober for almost 6 months.

And will you pray for me?
Or make me say don't leave?
And will you lay for me?
Or make us change?

I wondered whether it would be hard to move away from that house. Who am I kidding, of course it would. We had grown up here, all the memories of our parents were from here. I looked around. The house didn't look like anything special. It just looked liek all the houses around it. But it was special. To us. And in the end, that's what really matters. Us. Gerard and I. Sticking together. God, we make a good team. There was a point where we couldn't have got any further apart without one of us actually dying. But that behind us.

Cause I'll give you all the nails you need
Cover me in gasoline
Wipe away those tears of blood again

I got annoyed with myself whenever I thought of how depressed Gerard had been and how I was too wrapped up in myself to notice. What sort of brother can't see cuts on his brother's wrists, endless silence and black circles round his eyes. Those are the signs which a brother should see and pick up that something isn't right, not right at all. I was a joke.

And the punchline to the joke is asking
Someone save us

I visited him in hospital everyday til he got out, then forced him to speak to someone. He went to therapy which helped him quit the drugs and the booze. I guess I have a lot to thank that doctor for. He saved Gerard. He saved us.

Heaven help us now
Come crashing down
We'll hear the sound
As you fall

We looked at apartment for the next two weeks, finally finding one. We moved in a week later. And things only got better from there. Finally. One of my doomsday predictions was wrong.

And would you pray for me?
(You don't know a thing about my sins)
(How the misery begins)
Or make us say don't leave?
(You don't know)
(So I'm burning, I'm burning)
And will you lay for me?
(You don't know a thing about my sins)
(How the misery begins)
Or make us change?
(You don't know)
(Cause I'm burning, I'm burning)

Cause I'll give you all the nails you need
(I'm burning, I'm burning again)
Cover me in gasoline again