you tell me i am young and foolish but you are just as young and foolish for falling for me the way you have. we walk across a barbed wire tightrope and i know it's so ******* dangerous but the way you taste makes me forget my name. your lips beckon me without saying a word and your eyes are so mesmerizing i lose my train of thought when i look into them and all i can think about is kissing you. i never meant for any of this to happen and the lying and sneaking around won't last forever but you make me feel like i'll live a thousand more years. we love while cradling a time bomb and no one knows how many hours, days, years there are left on it. one day it will go off and we will perish together, or one of us will cut the wire and your timeline will no longer be the asymptote to mine.

A rock . . .
well really the brow of a rock . . .
its heart lay deep and hidden,
but when I lay my cheek against it
in the heat of the summer it cooled
and I could feel the great primeval thump of its heart
comforting me, when nothing else was understood.

I clutched this great rock,
my only constant in a life of changes,
while the earth itself, with me holding on tight,
flew at increasingly careless speeds
throughout my teenage years.

Beneath the arched viaduct it squatted
uncomplaining of the shafts of steel
and the weight of the stone it carried;
my teenage weight, of little importance.
It was always there when I came,
in dream, or even reality
taking the time to be calm and listen
as I told it of my hurts and young confusions.

One Summer, I foreswore all others
and promised it my heart,
if it would only turn it to stone,
and though the Rock it listened,
I knew the answer without us having to speak;
I was being selfish
and it would have given all of its
great and brooding strength
to feel, just a little, of my pain.

                                                      ©Copyright Niall OConnor 2012/2014

I can't get her off my mind,
Which is making it hard for me to unwind.

**But is she on your mind,
Or your heart - boy that claims to be kind?
The answer, you and only you, can find.