She left on that Desert highway
Running at top speed
She didn't stop for days
She wanted to end the bleed

Took a few left turns
She found herself lost
She had watched it all burn
Her soul had paid the cost

Her wildness enthralling
As in darkness she was drown
Storms of memories falling
Screaming silence the sound

Do not try to follow
Disappearing into herself, leaving only a blur
She'd taken all she could swallow 
With this life she  never did concur

©Pauline Russell

Oxymoron

Good judgment comes from experience, experience from bad decisions
This whole ******* life is a contradiction
It's an oxymoron at every turn
Every decision only gets you burned
If in old age you manage to arrive
That's when life's lessons are realized

The young are bound in the futility of it all
Never seeing the cliff before they fall
Not wise enough to know
God clipped our wings before the throw
He turned everything upside down
When he placed us on this hellish ground

We all were marked
You can't see the light unless your in the dark
You don't appreciate the sun's rays
Till you've stood in the storm for days
Without pain you wouldn't relish the pleasure
Without work, there would be no leisure
What is good, if taken to much only leads to bad
Giving love away leaves you with more than you had
The act of forgiveness is not for the one that hurt you
But heals your soul before its through

So do the best you can in life
Even when it equals strife
For this world will keep you spinning
For the score card is plain, death is winning

But don't you worry, I'm sure that's an oxymoron too
When deaths door we pass through
Real living, then will we ensue
In death there will be no rest
This life is but a test
For the oxymoron weaves it's way through it all
Even when death, at your door calls

©Pauline Russell

Last night I cried myself to sleep
Counting tears instead of sheep
I need a shepherd to guide my feet
Lost out here on this mountain steep
With every memory I just stumble
Trying to climb over my life's rubble

Inside my eyelids is a projection screen
Showing me  things I've lived and seen
Every bad decision I've ever made
All of life's punches, vividly displayed

For young and broken it was true love I craved
Making easy prey for human monsters to enslave
In my youth I was taught the rules
Of how to be the victim of those human ghouls

I'm bleeding out, but none can see
From the head is where I bleed
Memories continually running full throttle
Like lightning caught and sealed in a bottle

Desperately scrambling up the mountain's face
Trying so hard to find my place
In this world, where I'll never belong
Never allowed to sing my song

This little bird will never cheep
For my spirits broke, I'm way to weak
The pain and agony to myself I'll keep
Till my eyes close to that ultimate sleep

©Pauline Russell

There in the belly of the city
Way down there where it's dark and gritty
Lives a very complexe man
There in his Window he stands
Watching the atrocities that parade down his street
He's seen the dealer's and the junkies meet
The homeless that set at their feet
The thugs that prey on the weak
Children abused,  made to be meek
It plays out every day of the week

He's seen it all
He's watched humanity fall
It's hard for him to digest
On this life's problems his mind rest
He knows there's not much that he can do
He watches and writes it all down, he's one of the few
Sent to bear witness to the inhumanity of man
To make us think of where in this life we stand

Yes he is a poet
He's watched it all and wrote it
He has a big heart
Which makes it hard to play his part
Of watcher in the tower
As those below cower
But his calling, well that he is sure of
To watch the dying of love
To watch the darkness closing in
To watch all of man's sin
To sound the alarm
Of humanity going wrong

He stands at his Window and cries out
But no one pays attention to his shouts
So he soaks the page with ink and tears
Hoping that at last somebody hears

©Pauline Russell

It's hard living in a world where no one cares
While your smothered and shallowed by despair
Sitting here wondering why I was born into this place
Not wanting to be part of this sad human race
Where money is the great and powerful Oz
It doesn't matter what's the cause
I look and see their hearts have grown cold and calloused
Everything is so off balanced
There is no more unconditional love
No loving  help from up above
We have been abandoned
The trumpets have sounded
Humanity has been stripped of it's compassion
Empathy is in short ration
Gone are the ways of old
To these values we no longer hold
Now it's I'll do for you,  if you can do for me
That's not the way it's supposed to be
But everyone's eyes have been closed
Their souls have become thorny and cold
We are no longer judged on our thoughts and actions
But by how much money we have for the coming attractions
For if we don't have enough to pay
We become part of the play
We are condemned to be the *****
They feed to the machines of war

©Pauline Russell

There was a bird that grew up caged
It didn't know it should be enraged
It had seen other birds fly
Thought to it's self "they are going to die"
For from what it had lived and witnessed
It thought they must have a sickness
To make them fly
Way up there in the sky
In it's cage it was quite content
Never knowing what for, it's wings where ment
So it thought the other birds where more than bent

Are you like that little bird
Thinking that flying is quiet absurd
Are you locked in a cage of your own design
Content to live your life so confined
Take a closer look and open up your mind

© Pauline Russell

I can feel the monsters skull trying to break out
I can feel the snout slowly growing stout
I can hear the growls deep and fearful start
A crack of all the bones, a moving of the parts
Writhing in pain falling to the ground
No longer can a human form be found

Why are you braced to run
Don't you want to have some fun
After all you called it out from me
When you made my emotions bleed
You was so very **** obstinate
Now turn and face the consequence

He licks his lips, he can taste your lies
He stares intently into your eyes
There is nothing he can't find
Nothing can you hide
Looking you over
He takes a big sniff of your odor
He takes your face in his claws
To him you must plea, he makes the call
Are you worthy of me at all
For my Monster won't rip, won't tear
He'll simply make you miss what use to be there.

©Pauline Russell