She looks at him and wonders if
his long nose and fox eyes exist only for her.
Lovers made her laugh once.
She felt what it was like to touch the stars and share
secrets among frozen vegetables, dancing to
a song that was neither the singing nor the singer.
She thought she understood why the sun rose
in the east, why at a certain degree water forms crystals.
She thought she knew how to hold on and how to let go.
An ego death, a budding,
something so new it was like explaining
orange to a blind man.
His clean hands on the ridge of her spine,
trying to describe him with her fingers, silence exploding
in her, honey burning her tongue.
A bird can only see the world below her nest until
she discovers she has wings.

A simple phone call back is all it takes

The slightest sign of life you show me will fuel mine for the next week

Please just one date is all that I need

As I leap from the ship of "*******" and onto "adult"

Catch me before I fall into *no mans land

Months of sweating
vetting every word written
Shivering over all
that remained hidden

Rocking back and forth
Recognising the demons scream
Asking to be fed more
Inside of empty dreams

Then the words, they spill
from cracked and broken lips
bleeding onto tissue paper
inking stains of fatal trips

Then comes the rush
a verbiage of torrential pain
Crouching on a backlit screen
pockmarked with finger stains

The first spike of adrenaline
fizzes inside a broken mind
The churning end to a journey
that has completely left you blind

Collapsing in upon itself
is the high that's found a low
and when the reader is gone
You wonder where you'll go?

Perhaps you'll find a new pusher
Someone else to feed your pain
Someone that will dig that needle
deep
even deeper into the vein

I'll remember the All Stars
Covered in mud from our roaming
Through summer festival love;
And starry skies above
As we wondered through the night
Until the Sun kissed us;
The rocking of bodies,
Beneath blankets of darkness,
Our skin shimmering
In the moonlight.
I'll remember that.

But the dreams changed & faded
As the world turned
A new sun rose:
Fuelling my heart with desires,
Passions of bigger things.
I grew wings and
I flew to meet the horizon.
But you, you wouldn't see me
As I went into the light.
And so, your world became dark.
I left you there. I left your heart.

I could only carry one.
I was only strong for one.
I'd hoped you'd grow with me.
But you couldn't see.
You couldn't breathe
The bigger dreams in.
The things I chose
For me. For my destiny.
You needed to fumble through more muddy fields,
Dream beneath the same stars longer.
I left you there.
Because I cared too much.
And we'd started to tear.
The seams ripping open.
Breaking us was more than I could bare.
So I left you there. I left you.

i stand, self-aware, and watch the upward curve of his smile
his hands fiddle with the lint in his pockets and suddenly,
my cheeks flush rosy and i feel the need to remind myself
there is nothing beautiful about wasting time
he laughs slightly and something in me starts running and
i fight the urge to catch it
he steps forward, just so much that i become acutely aware
of the shared air between us - of which i forgot to breathe
i inhale & exhale, trying to remember
what it is that scares me the most
about this moment
i can feel the suspense arounds us
and it lingers there for a long while
it begs me to do something daring, but i wait a moment more
before closing the space that separates us
i am now within one blink of his smile
and i blink and he
kisses me
slowly, like he knows
there will be plenty of traffic on the way home
like he’s just trying to learn something new before he leaves
i slowly come undone and feel the curve of his smile,
my own beaming up at him
and i take a deep breath and remind myself
there is something beautiful about this moment

I stare at you and you stare at me,
That picture of me before,
You looked so young in your pedigree
Before we both went to war,
But life has left its mark on the face
That was captured, back in time,
And now there’s little left of your grace,
There’s nothing that’s left of mine.

For you’re a constant reminder of
The man that I thought was fine,
I look in awe at your forehead where
There isn’t a single line,
Not one of the cracks and crevices
That now will litter my brow,
I wonder how you would feel, if you
Were able to see me now?

If only I had been painted like
The Picture of Dorian Gray,
Then you would possibly look like me
And I’d be like you today,
My faults and pleasures you’d never know
Except on your painted face,
And you would never be put on show,
While I would retain your grace.

But time and life are a cruel pair,
For age to them is a joke,
They both conspire to grey your hair
From the time you enter their yoke,
They run their tractors over your face
Emasculate skin and bone,
And when you look, there isn’t a trace
Whatever you were, has flown.

No sweet young thing will look at you now,
If so, she’s telling you lies,
The only sign of the love you’ve known
Will still reside in your eyes,
And so you look at your lady now
Who stuck by you, thick and thin,
And praise the Lord that she’s aged like you,
As you’re falling in love again.

David Lewis Paget

Details, details, details.
The more things in my head,
the more things on the page.

The idea's flow.
Too fast, too beautiful.
Me, not quick enough
to put them down.

To down, not as I see them.
Depression is part of the progress.,
part of the art.