you're a love tease
resurfacing when I have
finally forgotten
how you sound,
how you feel-
flashing your smile and
reminding me that I
did not give it to you,
as if I hadn't died trying.
how real can your love be,
could it have been,
if you use the same words-
pair royalty and faith-
with a completely new face?

you will never understand
my ultra-sensitivity,
the pain that's overtaken me.
so deep that I'm lying
where the light has never touched.

I buried you beneath
an oceans worth of sand
too hot to touch, just in case
I thought for a second
that I should try to again.

I hate you so much
but love you even more,
so much so that I can forget
over and over
every knife
that was plunged
through my body
every lie
that made me bleed inside.

perhaps my love is unconditional.

Let's stop mid-scream and steal a moment of sanity
Hold on to your vanities, your profanities
Let me help

Let me tell you a story
'Tis grim and gory

Follow me home, follow me home
Make me feel unsafe
Make me feel like prey
In this jungle of concrete and brick

Your judgements are bullets
With eyes for triggers
**** me.

Intentions, retentions, preventions
Our sinful innocence will be the end of us
We walk into burning buildings
Yet we are not fireproof

We have never been
Fireproof.

I have a little black book
Inside are names
Names of those I know
Some I love
Some I onced loved
Some I came to despise
Every time I open the book
It makes me sad
Most of these names
I haven't spoken to in years
Some I barely remember
Sometimes I add new names
Not as often as I used to
And every time I do
A light shines inside
Before being extinguished
Once again
As I close my little black book
A little black book full of me

and then I asked you,
"What's your biggest fear?"

you gave me a quivering sigh,
looked at me straight in the eyes
and said,

"It's that eventually, you will see me
the way I see myself."

.
Links in the chemist chain
laced in a double helix
defy the laws of the universe,
and the atavistic resurgence
creates isotopes of dream passion.
     Elements conspire in panic
     with a symmetry of casual chaos
     that mimics an atomic bomb,
     destroying its own creator
     in a cruel parody of birth paradox.
          Arresting the Iris of Dissolution
          with cuffed anxiety drowning
          in a pond of helium ore,
          carelessly drifting on acid flesh,
          coagulating in a soup of memory.

And the paradigm shifts again,
reality unfocussed clears, strains,
revealing your shuddering form,
next to me, keeping me warm.
Lids flicker and you open your eyes,
shining, smiling in cute surprise.
Moving my finger up to my lips
whilst I gently untangle our hips.

     Do you remember this night?
     Last night, tonight, tomorrow night?
     Time begins to slowly rewind,
     on the night you blew my mind.

My essence is filled with your heart,
a love I have yet to discover.
Whilst you wander between the stars,
my universe starts to recover.

So please don't break this silence now.
Please don't shatter this moment long,
I want this post ****** memory to remain
in the morning when you have gone.

© Pagan Paul (04/11/17)

watching everyone take off their head phones,
just to hear me, just to hear me.

on the corner of, crest and woodview,
you couldn't see me, but i was near you.

screaming at the top, of both of my lungs,
not much air left, it wouldn't matter.

feeling like that bell's, finally been rung,
no more laughter, only children's sadness.

   there's a court date coming,
    there's subpoenas in the mail,
      we can all just ignore it,
        but as soon as we will fail.
         there's a court date coming,
          there's subpoenas in the mail,
           this is something we should go to,
            or this world cannot prevail.

all my scars are from familiar places,
give it a name, and i will listen.

shootin' stars, ask for me to wish them,
i couldn't do it, to my discredit.

i'll exchange a book for your Walkman,
happy birthday, happy birthday.

from afar you will see smiling faces,
no more hiding, now you get it.

        


        december second at three forty two am, with 12 seconds...1988

Humor me, you said,
after all those years
like you could come back
to the stage and direct
a play that was never yours.
Like my limbs are held by
strings and you;
my puppeteer.
Like I'm suspended in time
and the clock ticks by only
when you appear.
But I'm not a stage for a play,
not yours to conduct.

I am sun, moon and stars.
A wild child, untamed;
a beast you could never hope to control.

a flicker
of recognition

a glance
into a sea of faces

a pair of eyes
that were once familiar

but the feeling is
different

the emotion is
heavy

i look away