While soldiers hold their guns
Shooting people to survive

at the same time...

Kids hold their needles
Shooting up in the last vein they can find

Some pray to live
Others pray to die

Shots of death echoing
Through the night.

A ****** is, a ****** was, a ****** here? a dime a dozen.
A ****** girl? just sixteen.
Choose to see life, a different sheen.
Needle never, needle then.
Needle why, in need of a friend.
Need some love, to warm my bones.
was frightened then, terribly alone.
A ****** was, a ****** why.
A ****** wished she could die.
A ****** lost it, skinny and sick.
all that's left, bones to pick.
A ****** disease, a ****** cure.
Don't know if you can recover for sure.
A good person now, a ****** then.
Hard to tell who might win.

Since ancient times crowds of men have asked:
What is the purpose of life?
Me included.
Since my later teens and into my sixties
I have wrestled with this question.

To me, it was never about wealth or status.
People waste their time
With such things.

So what should we do
That is Really Good?
WHAT is “Good”?

For me, Life as such is Good.
What use is the Universe,
With its sprawling galaxies
Of fire, rock, dust, water:
Incredible vistas
Shock awe
Eternally Infinite
What use without
A Witness?

We are that Witness,
But should we be much more?
And all I can think
Is to cherish all that lives,
As life itself
Is the most wondrous thing
Of all.

Our purpose then is to nurture
Life at it’s best:
To make it better and better:
Stronger and brighter
More intelligent
With more Love and compassion.

Some will say
Why ask?
Extraterrestrials may have
Another View.
We may be but bacterial infestations
To be cleansed away.

Yet other “Aliens” may well agree
With every word I type.
And like many of us humans
They may be warning
That we must take
Much better care
Of this Paradise
We call Earth.

I call myself a “Lifist”
A believer in
Christianity at it’s best
(But Not it’s worst),
And other Religions too…

So let’s take the best
Of these Beliefs,
Nurture Nature,
Love Life
And just
Get on with it.

Paul Butters

© PB 31\7\2019.

I think I
need to accept
that we're
not meant for
"facebook official"

We were hidden
behind locked
doors, whispers
in ears, hidden
under covers
with a substance
we could blame
our actions on.

We weren't meant
to hang on each other
in front of people who
could tell.
I'm good at keeping
secrets, I promise.
But I've never fallen
In love with one.

I don't think you intended
that to happen.
I don't think you
intended to fall
in love with it
either.

But your legs have
always been
ready to run.
So when it
became clear
that we could
happen.
That the curtain
would be pulled,
you wanted no part
of it.

And I think I
need to accept
that we weren't
meant to be
known.

Don’t become infatuated
Don’t fall in love
Especially not with poets
Because they only ever exist in their words
They will write you love poems, and lengthy paragraphs
With words said in ways you have never heard before
You will fall in love, with love poems, the way they say their vowels, and the look in their eyes when they read to you  
They will lull you to sleep with sticky sweet words
And they will speak of the colour yellow, in a new light
A new meaning will come to its definition
And it will slowly become your favorite colour
You will wear yellow dresses, and put daisies in every room  
You will see the speckles of yellow in their brown eyes
But you will find them at three in the morning sitting in the bath tub, bathing in the words of metaphors
You will find them having an affair with Stanzas and Verses at the same time, sleeping with sonnets
You will see that poetry was always their mistress
At night they will no longer share blankets with you, but they will wrap themselves in ballads and couplets
You will only be able to express this new distance with eulogies
You will start seeing yellow everywhere
In the beds of your nails, and them hems of your skirts
Till you start seeing it so often that you will want to puke up every word they have ever said to you
You will realize that talk is cheap and Rhymes are easy
You will realize that poets only ever exist in their words

Wait I.. I take that back
Fall in love with oddly pronounced vowels, love poems, lengthy paragraphs, and sparking eyes
Wear yellow dresses again
Pick a bouquet of daisies
Fall in love with 2 a.m. again
But not with just anyones 2 a.m.
Fall in love with yours
Get swept up in the arms of personification
Drink sticky sweet words, get drunk off yourself
Have a love affair with stanzas
Kiss verses on the lip
Wrap up your wounded parts with haikus
Become infatuated with metaphors
Whisper sweet nothings to yourself
Fill your nights with praise poems
And love songs
Tear up every eulogy you have ever written
Knit yourself a blanket from all the unfinished poems, all your couplets
Sing ballads to yourself
And write sonnets in the moonlight
Fall in love with rich words and complex rhymes
Don’t worry about falling out of love this time

Anorexia was the most attentive
Girlfriend anyone could ask for
And I fell hard for her
I fell for for 500 calories a day,
The sense of control it gave me
Compliments from girls I'd never talked to before
Doctors so pleased that I was finally "healthy"
That feeling,
Of stepping on the scale
And realizing that I took up less space
Than when I'd stepped on the day before
The feeling of water hitting an empty stomach
The hunger pangs
That secretly thrilled me
The thrill of the lies
The ones that became ever so easy
To slip off my tongue
The thrill of a secret love affair with death
I fell for an abuser
I fell...
Literally
Bruises lined my body
From bumping into walls
Because my body was so
Malnourished I couldn't
Walk down a hallway
Fell down a rabbit hole-
Fell down into a world I couldn't escape-
Thigh gaps, thinspiration, tips and tricks to
Hide this wonderland in your head
Walking headfirst into Anorexia was like walking
Into a haunted house
It's fun and exhilarating at first
It's a game, it's harmless
And then you realize that the doors
Are barred and it dawns on you
That ringing the doorbell of death
Was not the best idea
I am a study in skinny does not make you happy
The 5 pounds you wanted to lose
Turns to 10
Turns to 20
Turns to...
I am a study in
Every inch of your body being a warzone
Of standing in front of a mirror
Seeing nothing but a piece of meat
Taking up too much space
I am a study in calculation
I am a study in lying
I am a study in not dead, but not alive
I am a study in starvation
I am a study in falling out of love

maybe in 10 years we'll bump into each other

we'll catch up on all the time we let run away

and how desperately in love I was with you

and we can laugh about how we broke eachothers hearts.

The English vice,
Some Etonian curse –
Set down in grass
And purple verse,

Lavatory bred
With ransacked blood,
Skin slapping and
With a falling thud –

Takes boys at childhood,
Wishes them away,
With promises of popper fuelled buffets,

And poisons them with
Vice and virus red,
And sees them unmarried
Giving head.

I don’t regret a single thing I am,
I’ve tried it out
And can’t abide the sham –

I’ll **** men
And make them beg for more,
I’ll scrabble for their love upon the floor,

I’ll love men
And love will love me too,
I’ll love for love’s own sake
And when I’m through

I’ll die and I’ll be thankful that your hate
Never made me beg that I was straight.