Dear Ben - Loyle Carner, Jean Coyle-Larner

I’ve watched you grow, from first kick, to first kiss

Shoulder rides to sleepless nights

Felt-tip crows to scoring goals, and bedtime Katamino

Watched you hold your own from boy to man

As you stand firm, bare and bold, not afraid to walk alone

Reveal your pain.

Unique.

Defiant.

Uncompromising

And with our compass lost, we talked long into the darkest hours

Until we saw the burnished sky, and our eyes stung as our words blurred and

became thoughts

As we were silenced by the dawn

We clung to each other like sailors in a storm as our world pitched and bucked,

our breath stolen by grief

But you stood strong, filled such big boots

Gripped to the helm and steered us on into the calm

Abandoned your lifetime ambition, to hold us down

Took on a different mission, while we were turned inside out, raw and gaping

But you wrapped us up in your dream, realised your vision and fed us with your

words of pearl

Like buccaneers, we sailed the seven seas and drank in the wonders of your

world, and returned giddy with the heady smell of your success

And when that time came, oh did we weep, but the tears that streaked our cheeks

were stained with glee because we knew that this was not goodbye,

that you’d be back, that you’d never really left

Because love does not lessen by miles it’s not locked out by doors or walls,

but reinforced in thought and heart

It cannot be lost like a key or a sock, or left behind in a box,

it is present in each and every breath and flows deep with every beat and deed

It may not be your presence but it’s your essence that remains.

Forever dancing

like glitter in our air

And now it’s as clear to me my beautiful boy, as naked as the joy that caresses

the creases of your eye, that you’ve finally found your one, your golden snitch,

and my task is done

For I’ve gained a daughter

I’ve not lost a son

Ma, you wait till Emily hears that, you wait till the world hears that, fuuuuuu-

Do you like it?

It’s even better than the first one

Oh my days