I’m being told to love myself,
But how can I when I wish to be anyone else.
How can I when nobody else wishes to love me,
But instead choose someone better, prettier despite no personality.

I break down all too often, as I stare at my reflection.
Wishing I looked different, praying that tomorrow I’ll look different.
I’m not sure if it was the month or if it was just a need to cry,
But nobody loves me, and neither do I.

My smile shows off teeth that aren’t fixed to perfection,
Sometimes in shop mirrors, I’ll glimpse the reflection.
It brings my mood down, way down below the surface,
And I wish that tomorrow; pray that tomorrow I will look different.

Natural beauty is not my friend,
Make-up won’t stay on my face,
There’s all too much I wish to change,
I’d rather just copy and paste.

In a room full of people,
I’d be last on your list,
She would be first and that’s just how it is.
I’ve come to accept it, yet still dying inside.
She wishes to flaunt and I’d rather hide.
I have little confidence whilst she seeps way too much,
But I guess that’s what you like and I guess that’s what you love.
So a reminder to myself, from present and from past,
To use in the future, your hurt never lasts.
Next time you are deeply hating yourself, and you can’t find the will to live,
Please read this back until it sticks in your head,
And you find the strength to forgive.
Forgive yourself for feeling this way, and know that it’ll pass,
Because your head is held high and within the sky,
You’ll see his face is shaped like an ***.

I am drenched
                  in you
            as you wash
  through my pores
I am quenched
in tsunami
as it pushes down
my door
I am splayed
to all four corners
exposed to your eye
My veins are frayed
from suffered hautings,
'Til you
rock my tender tide
My torso is taut
to meet liquid lips
all these *****,  
silky thoughts
controlling my hips
We share a
          rushing river language
speaking deftly in tongues
You penetrate my soul
as I breathe air into
your lungs
So take me on an
underwater journey
down the crash
of your shore
I want to drown
in this ocean
and come to life
with a roar

I’m lost in the game of pretend, everything is fine. I waste time and breath and life to just get far enough away from the pain and disappointment, so it doesn’t hurt anymore. I’m fine...

It’s not about you stealing my life, precious years left of my precarious youth. You showed me I’m still weak and broken. You’ve shown me I still can’t walk away from the burning red flags you waved. I am not able to walk away from being hurt, over and over!

I made excuses for your beast, I hide from him as I did my own feelings of revolt and fear. I stayed, I should have left, as soon as I met you. I should never have let you tear away so much of me, to ruin so many precious memories.

Unfortunately now I’m still running and I’m still hiding from these feelings inside. I don’t want to admit that I’m the one that’s broken and I’m the one that can’t seem to walk away from the fire, no matter how much it burns.....

maps are for lost
fools, going in predictable
directions, too afraid
of the unknown.
they'll never step off
the concrete, never feel
the rub of untouched
brush against their skin
or the adrenaline of
where the **** am I?
they play by the rules,
in lust with their cookie
cutter by the book lives.

maps. charted journeys.
these things don't interest me.
i want scrapes up and
down my arms and legs
because i dared venture too
deep. i want bruises and
bleeding because i got lost,
too lost. i want to get lost.
i want to lose the map.
i want to lose my little
here dot, the one that
follows me, red and angry
because i don't stay on the
path to that cookie cutter
life.

i want off this route. this
one that leads only to
                                  y o u.

I may not be able to save the whole world, but I hope that my words can one day save someone’s world.

at 4 in the
morning the sun
is never up
but i usually am

i worry
about things
that are out of
my control
even more about
things that are

get up early
when i work
and earlier
when i don’t
the older i get the
more i learn
sometimes you
need to cry it out

alone
at night
into your pillow
the blankets
wrapped all
around you

sometimes you
need to cry
and cry
and cry

until the morning
sun falls across
the tears dried
under your lashes

and the lump
in your throat has
dissolved so you can
breathe with ease

you need to get up
let hot water
wash it away
let the steam rising
from your mug soften
any sorrow left around
your morning eyes
take a deep breath
don’t mention it
to anyone

and
just
keep
going

i will
just
keep
going

you are the color in between all of the other colors
you don't care about the spectrum, you are an entity
i don't love you to the moon and back, i love you more than all of the stars in the galaxy
i love the way you capture everything i've ever loved
you are darkness
you are light
you have depth
you are whole
but that doesn't mean you're perfect
you are unlike anything i've ever seen
you are magical
you are the feeling i got when my dad tucked me in at night
you are as sweet as the memory of me dancing and singing in the rain up and down the street i grew up on
you are beautiful
but that word is so cliché
it could never define you
you are something that i've dreamed of
you are like déjà vu
you aren't like the nightmares that follow me into the daylight
you are what holds out a hand and tells them to stop
you are the feeling of having ten blankets on you but still being comfortably cool
you are the nicest pillow i've ever laid my head upon
you are the reason my tears stop pouring
but sometimes you are the reason they pour
because you are so complex
and i long to understand you and fear i never truly will
because you are grey
you are everything and nothing
empty and full
the space in between
you're indescribable
so this poem with incomplete sentences and no capitalization
can't come close
to everything that you mean to me
you believe you are a spec of nothingness
and that people can walk by you and not remember you
but you're unforgettable
you're captivating
you're the emotion in my ellipses
you're... my favorite color

You tend to me
in a way
no one else has before,
letting me grow
anew.

.
To whom it may concern.
To anyone who remembers me.
I bet you thought I was dead,
hidden in this house of lunacy.

You had me brought here,
so this letter to you I pen.
This place is cold and sterile,
I can't wait to be free again.

Was it for my own safety?
Or was it to safeguard yours?
I cannot recall the problem now,
my mind is stuck on pause.

They fill me up with pills,
keep my head in narcotic haze.
I have a soft and secure room
to smile away the days.

It will be good to see your faces
when they finally let me home.
I wish one of you would write,
or call me on the telephone.

Why do you never come and visit
The Moontouched man so mad?
I'm sorry you saw my melt-down,
sorry it made You feel that bad?

I hope you will read this letter,
the pen and paper I had to borrow.
But the drugs are starting to work,
I'm so drowsy now...
          ... I'll finish this tomorrow...


© Pagan Paul (2017/18)