Chapter 2: When in Hell, you need a friend
"WHEN IN HELL, YOU NEED A FRIEND"not someone who says they'll be there — someone there at the end.The war we fight's not only against powers and principles,it's against temptation itself — raw, personal, clinical.Our battlefields bring us closer to chaos, disaster, despair,and when you hit the bottom you find out who's actually there.Nobody warns you. Nobody sits you down and explains.Nobody tells you the worst bit isn't the death, it's the painof losing hope. The end of dreaming. For all eternity.Not a metaphor. Not a lyric. That's what it did to me.But victory is always within reach,and I didn't read that in a book — that's what the scars teach.
Revelations — to him who overcomes I will give the rightto sit with me on my throne, to step out of the night,as I overcame and sat with my father on his —that's the promise. That's the covenant. That's what redemption is.
This book and the ones that follow are based on a true story and real events.Not dressed up, not dramatised, not hidden behind a fence.I'm telling it now because not telling it would be the crime,and may God have mercy on my soul — I'm running out of time.Forgiveness is earnt through redemption, it's not freely given,not a gift, not a pardon, it's the price of keeping on living.
Dedicated to anyone it reaches, anyone who understands,anyone who feels its touch, in the pull, in the shaking of the hands.To my mother, my children, my friends, my family — every one,to anyone I've ever loved or lost beneath the sun.Those I've hated, those I've hurt, those I'm destined to meet,tomorrow or the day after, on some ordinary street.
The poetry is dedicated to none. Not you. Not them. It's mine.My only release from the pain, my only flatlinebetween the torment and the breathing, the only thing I own,the only room I've got where I can be alone.
And my testament is for those who know no faith at all,who've stood at the edge and stared and waited for the fall,because "it can only be seen by the eyes of the blind"*,the therapist.
"THE BEGINNING IS THE END AND THE END ONLY EVER JUST THE BEGINNING"London. 2023. July.
* Tribute to the lyric in Billy Joel's "River of Dreams"
July, 2026