based on Portugal 1984

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My children are in need of my attention
But this chair feels so good I can’t get up
Though my heart yearns to show affection
I’m hooked on rest for my rump

I started doing chair when I was pregnant
When it took the load off my swollen hooves
Flames can’t make me leave my bedroom
There’s no chance I’ll ever move

My children can’t bear to watch me self-destruct
I hear them cry each night, for their beds aren’t tucked
I’m missing their whole lives
Whilst I waste mine on a pile of down

This chair is my addiction and my kids are starved of hugs
The cushion is my dealer and the tassels are my drugs

My children never ask me to make breakfast
They go off to school, coatless and unfed
Whilst in my bedroom, I am menaced
By the snug habit I can’t shed

If I should overdose on pillow pleasure
Who would argue my kids aren’t better off?
Can’t escape the padded leather
Rehab failed twice, this seat’s too soft

My children are wrecks but I’m snug as a bug
Their birthdays go ignored though my heartstrings tug
But this chair’s so divine
Stuffed full of feathers – I feel the fowl

But I know it’s my children that are really feeling foul
I curse the feather chickens and the leather-giving cow

Ai…

My chances all spent, social workers have come
They warned me many times but I wouldn’t budge
My children wave goodbye
And here I’m left with this wretched couch

And so I sit in sorrow, left to ponder over how
To those who called me Mama, I am just Maria now.