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I'm only 24, but I'm already waiting to die. There's no history of terminal diseases in my family and I haven't got it in the balls to do it myself. I guess time will be my suicide weapon of choice. I must really hate myself, because I hear it's one of the most painful ways to do it.

Somewhere along the line something must have gone seriously wrong. I'm a lonely man, that's what I am. My tombstone will read "Lonely Man". It doesn't have to, but it will. That's just the kind of luck I have.

You know your life hasn't turned out the way you'd hoped when you start choosing your checkout at the supermarket by the girl you think is most likely to fall in love with you, rather than shortest queue. There are few things sadder than a crying man, a crying man placing a microwave meal for one on a conveyor belt at half eleven on a Friday night, all in the desperate hope that the woman at the till will see the poor quality lasagne and say "Hey, you must be lonely too! What say we try to wake from this hellish nightmare and get married before it's too late?". Most men go to bars and get drunk. Lonely men get drunk and go to Tesco. Maybe it's because we hope the harsh lightning at the fridges will help people see us for who we really are and take pity on us. A pity-handjob can keep a lonely man going for months.

I remember a time when I didn't spend hours in deep and terrifying thought if a woman accidentally brushed against my hand on the Tube. Did she do it on purpose? Was she trying to get my attention? Ask me out on a date? Was it a cry for help? Is she being held hostage by a violent lover, in a life she'd only pondered in nightmares?

It wasn't when I started following these women to make sure they weren't being held hostage that I started to think my life had gone wrong. It was when I started carrying the knife. The knife: Excaliber, my shining sword to set free any damsel in distress. I cannot allow domestic violence. I just wasn't raised that way. If she, whoever she may be, was trapped in a life of pain then I would set her free, even if it meant putting her at peace forever.


Nathan, SE19.