by Perry Cox

Created on: November 10, 2008

The Carer

How can we manage with three of us on?
There are forty-four residents and they all want one on one,
You will have to hold it till I get someone else,
Sweet Jesus, you're wet, why don't you ask for some help?
Another fourteen hour shift with a ten minute break,
Still the buzzers are going but sod them they can wait.
I give out the tablets but don't see who there for,

Give them a sleeper or two maybe more.

I'm setting the tables they're always in my face,
Stealing the knives my good work gone to waste.
I get slapped, punched and spat at but no one cares,
Feeling dejected as I walk up the stairs.
On minimum wage my enthusiasm wanes,
I ring in sick with back aches and pains.
Looking for some other job as we speak,
Maybe a lifeguard with a view of the beach?

The Resident

I am looking for a way out of this place,
Endless corridors of empty space.
They say I live here but I know it's not true,
I live in a flat with my girls Jill and Sue.

Everyone is old and seems to be mad,
They're acting like children and using language that's bad.
People in uniforms tell me to sit,
In a lounge full of people demented and sick.
I am given some pills I don't know what they're for,
If I refuse to take them they shout and they roar.
I'm going to be late I have work in an hour,
"Come with me dear while I give you a shower".

Music and television on really loud,
I can't hear myself think in this almighty crowd.
They shout at me as though I am deaf,
I am thirty-five not eighty I try to profess.
They say I live here but I know it's not true,
I live in a flat with my girls Gill and Sue.

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