I feel the essence of you, and I ache inside,
As you infiltrate my being to the very core,
There is no place for me, unwilling to hide,
Forgive me; I’m unable, to suffer anymore.
Our palpable charisma echoes, who we are,
Shaping us incrementally, acquiring a hold,
We cannot turn back, we’ve come too far,
Our friendship has allowed, love to unfold.
Stranded at crossroads, unable to proceed,
Am I just a dreamer, and you just a dream?
Accepting choices, until I started to bleed,
Fond memories weep, drifting downstream.
So what now, precious love, what do I do?
I’m alone, oh but I feel, the essence of you.

©Paul M Chafer 2016

Crazy starry-eyed mannequin
Taken to the stars again
Heroic catalyst of my youth
Left us with the inevitable truth
proof of the elusively loose and uncouth

I'll see you in the sky

Sometimes I count backwards from 10 hoping with each passing number a month could go by so that when I reach February you still want me to die and we still both agree on something.
I keep your letters under the mattress like we used to, sometimes I feel brave enough to ask if you read the letters I sent you whenever you're tired but then I feel like that question would have to be followed by me asking you to send them back.
Even counting down from 5 would be good enough if it meant it was back to the part when you said you'd thought about it too.
Giving someone space by telling yourself to read their signals like an instruction manual and wait for the right away as if you've never given it to anyone else.
Still giving you space because I'm blind enough to not be able to tell when I should make a decision.
Maybe I could try to call you and count the rings before you answer.
I could wait for you to call me and save the candle from my 7th birthday for when I turn 70.
If I never texted you again I wouldn't have to to tell my future kids what serendipitous impatience feels like.
If you read this you're gonna realize it's about you as fast as I realize every girl I talk to still sends their ex messages at one in the morning on the edge of whiskey soaked lips.
In retrospect that's equally as fast as when I realize I build homes in muddy coloured eyes.

She's very much alive
But she is dead to me
The decision wasn't mine
She wanted to be
A tombstone in my mind
A grave inside my heart
A perpetual funeral
That has no end or start
There is no wreath to set
No flowers to lay
The only place that this exists
Is buried in my wake

It's in the way the mountain breathes
or how the wind shakes the leaves from the trees
It's how the mirror reflects your truth
or how the existence of proof could fall from the roof
Don't listen to the radio antics
or the romantic notion of semantics
Instead please, you could play in the leaves
splay through the breeze or lay with trees
who shake their leaves
as the mountain breathes
and the war ends, or the world pretends as much