How do I tell you
How perfect you seem?
How do I tell you
How amazing you are?
How do I tell you
What you mean to me?
How do I tell you
What the sight of you does to me?
You are the reason my heart flutters and flits
You are the reason my hands shake and my voice quits
So my one question for you is this
Will you be my date to WPA?

Talking about styles in class
The teacher points to me
How my clothes make a rebel
My attitude has no cause
My hair shows my need for attention
My expensive jacket shows wealth
But my cheap flats revel I am poor
I turn my attention to her
I say nothing
I just nod
She could figure me out in a few seconds
But I haven't been able to find myself out in 15 years

Insert tasteless **** joke here*
I stand still listening to the clicking trigger of your words
As the bullet shooting from your mouth hits a still new wound
And even though this all past just over a year ago
Every time my battle scars from this ongoing war start to heal
A new obstacle must be conquered, and new wounds form
What you did to me was repeated
not once
not twice
Four more times
****
******
and Child *******
All used to just be words
Officers
Judges
And district attorneys
Were once all just people
Your **** joke may be funny to you
But think of the people who really lived through it
The *** end of your **** joke
The boys and girls standing
Hiding behind the façade of petty laughter

Authors moan of Writer’s Block:
They can’t unpick their inner lock.
A black expanse is all they see
Their rhymes are but a tragedy.

“The Block” is writers’ constipation,
A failure of imagination.
What laxative is there for this?
You feel like you’ve been sent to Dis.

Oh where did those ideas go?
That blank page fills them full of woe.
Play with words is what I say,
Then soon a poem is on its way.

Don’t try so hard is my advice:
Perfection can be such a vice.
Watch telly, films, anything you like,
And let your mind just take a hike.

Listen to music by all means,
Like you used to in your teens.
Watch the news, or take a stroll,
Drag yourself out of that hole.

Take a nap whenever you like,
Sleep will get you ready to strike.
Toy with words again I say:
Best inspiration springs from play.

Paul Butters

I ignore you so that you know I am here

I see you in my photos
There you are in my videos
You haunt me
Looking at you is captivating
I know you not
I make up your story
I make up the reason for the small scar on your face
I see you in my photos
There you are in my videos
Haunting my imagination