My mother never smiles,
but her soul is a garden filled with joy.
Her eyes shine like a full moon,
glistening at all the darkness in the world.

She yearned to be free,
her soul tangled in the roots of oppression,
while her eyes were haunted by images of discrimination.

As a child I wondered why?
Why does my mother never smile?
She’s so beautiful like the stars in the sky.
Even roses are jealous of the redness blushing beneath her eyes.

I think I even yelled,
“Mom, why are you so unhappy?”
But I was just a child,
I didn’t see the love that filled her bubbly brown eyes.

My corrupted character debilitated her spirit,
believing she was,
    ungrateful,
    unhappy,
    and cold,
as a tundra and I was a palm tree,
but really we were both tulips,
and she was just teaching me how to bloom.

She’s a hero who never received her praise.
Depicting her sorrows through colors on a canvas,
meditating herself to solace.
She knew how to leave this world behind,
for the sake of her own mind.

As I aged,
I suffered,
I spiraled into multiple dark holes,
    I blamed,
    I begged,
    I screamed,
with silence taped across my mouth,
“Why am I so unhappy?”
But unlike my mother I always smiled,
and it was always a lie.

This taught me the limits of a smile,
and why my mother didn’t need to smile,
because a smile is often just a lie,
she expressed her happiness on the inside.

I fell into a pit swimming with fear,
battled demons I thought were my friends.
I’d assumed sadness was a punishment,
but it became my reward.

My mother taught me I didn’t need to smile,
the sadness helped illuminate the good in my life,
and it was okay not to always be fine.

My mother exposed me to my soul,
how tender it is and how harsh I am.
Depicting the reality of what life is,
since I only saw it as a sin.

.
Snow drifts down
     laying a lawn cold sheet
across the frozen ground,
          creating art reliefs
like acid etching glass,
open space rolling and undulating,
in small hills and depressions,
     bedecked in a veil of white.
The silence is deafening,
quiet having been enjoyed
     and surpassed,
briefly punctuated by the call of a bird,
     A sharp whistle that shrieks
and attacks the silence.
The fresh smell of snowfall wafts up
     as it settles and glistens
in the light of silver moonbeams,
randomly peeping through clouds.
The taste of peace,
                     tranquility,
in the frigid air,
sends imagination soaring
from the desolation of isolation
to another time and place.
          The snow falls,
     falls,
in a relentless race for the ground,
               all is still,
               nothing stirs,
as the moor welcomes its quilt
and sleeps with a cold heart,
     dreaming,
                       of being kissed by the Sun.



© Pagan Paul (28/05/18)

She can walk
          between
             night and day
               never letting either
                  get in her way.
She learned this trick
                     many moons ago
                                by
                     going deep within
           and never letting it show.
Her soul is innocent
her heart is pure
she’s gone through more
than most could endure.
            She’s an angel of light
                 an angel of dark
                 you never know
              what you will spark.
                      You want to hurt her?
                         Please, go ahead and try
                           she’ll be the one to show you
                                  just how well she can
                                                              f
­                                                                l­
                                                                ­  y.
                                  Her soul innocent
                    her heart pure
      but never think for one minute
that she’s not secure.
                                Say what you will
                          please, do what you must
                       but your jealousy and hatred
                             won’t waver her trust!
~

it hurts
a sharp jabbing
pain in my
lower side
just above my
stomach

i only feel it
when i start
to think
too hard

it often aches
throughout the day
snakes downward and wraps
itself around my legs
squeezes my muscles
so tight i can’t sleep

the pain
screams
that i am not
good enough
that i never
have been and
never will be
good enough

there are purple
bags under my eyes
i keep them full
at all times

full of
what?

full of
words

words like
“no”
“can’t”
“want”
“practical”
“best”
“should”
“plan”

heav­y
words
that pull my
head down

so that i focus
on the floor
my own feet
and the thick
vine winding
up from the
ground trying
to choke me out

lately every
step has been hard
trying to pull
the roots up
so i can begin
to move forward

it’s slow
and the pain
and the words
make it slower

and i am tired
so tired
all i want is to
stop moving
just for a
bit to rest

afraid of
what i know
about myself
and how if i
pause and
slow down

my body will
come to a
complete halt
and more of those
dead weight words
might tumble out

words like
“wrong”
“want”
“work”
“will”
“can”
“happy”
“no”

until i am buried
under an avalanche
of double negatives
and wishful thinking

and still the pain
keeps on throbbing
as i keep swallowing
down my toxic words

Unfinished,
unpolished,
unfurnished;
unpublished.
Like us, a draft
of what can be called
"the both of us."
A draft created
that's open for change.

A change
to be better
---better
than who we are
or what we are
in the midst of the conflict
that floats around us
for the sake of us
for the both of us
---for each other.

A change
to be smoother
---smoother
with no mistakes,
with everything
in order;
consistent,
and coherent
even with the dialogues
we say that matter.

A change
to be clearer
---clearer,
meaning it is
at least what it is
meant to be conveying
with no underlying
vague wordings
when it comes
to our feelings
---for one another.

But that's there all is:
a draft
of what could be called
the both of us;
a product
of what we can become
if we make it become;
a product
of the possibilities
of what can be us,
of what might be us,
of what is it between us
between the fragments
of the words,
the lines,
and the series
of all of them
that constantly paint
faint descriptions of us,
descriptions
created [fabricated]
in my mind
like a work of fiction,
of pure imagination.

Unfinished,
unpolished,
unfurnished;
unpublished,
l­ike the poems
I wrote for us;
like the poems
about us;
like us, a draft.