my roommate likes to play dress up.
sometimes, she will look just like me;
other times, she looks like fragmented bits
of my worst weeks thrown together
in old calendars I've tried to lose.

you tell me this is a cry for help,
but "help" is a foreign word
that will always sound funny
coming from my lips.
keeping myself together
is a language I never learned to speak.

a merry-go-round of feeling bad
about feeling bad
about feeling bad.
I can't remember the opposite of sick.
my stomach is hurting
and my head is spinning
from all of these circles.

I've been avoiding my reflection
because I'm afraid she'll be disappointed
to see what I've made out of her.
I don't want to keep running from people
who once loved me.

Nothing ventured
nothing gained

We'll feign the perfection
we never attained

Only memories ever can last
we'll postpone the future
to worship the past

Love me strong
in candle light

Pretend you do
stay tonight

The feeling I'll save
locked in my mind

Embrace me again
for the last time

A tiring walk
that gets
kinda awkward
super quickly
going down
memory lane
makes me long
for blackout
boulevard.

Leave before they love you
Or
Stay until they don't anymore

Right now I’m alive
For now.
How long will I thrive?
Don’t know.

For most of Eternity
I’ll be dead.
Such is Mortality
It’s said.

Let me meditate on that.
Let me contemplate the moment.
Sitting on my mat
Dreaming a romant.

Yes I’m alive
Of that I’ve no doubt.
But where’s my drive?
I must have a scout…

Been to Tenerife and Malta
Scotland and Wales.
Never Gibraltar,
Few travelling tales.

But I’m not a roamer,
Rather stay at home.
Yes ever the homer,
And often alone.

My laptop and telly
Are all that I need.
Give me Keats and Shelley
For a good read.

So it’s right in the Now
I really must stay
No why, who or how
To darken my day.

No thoughts of the past
Or dreams of the future.
Make each second last,
Turn off that computer.

This moment has gone,
Now that you’re reading.
Let’s have another one,
That’s where I’m leading.

For now never lasts,
That we all know.
It’s lost in our pasts,
No longer on show.

I try here to paint
What has been and gone.
An attempt to create
The eternal song.

Paul Butters

I can see you in your teens in my minds eye
the song sung blue until the nights sky,
emerges through cloud curtains,
closed,
exposed,
yet
we still try and hide,
as
umbrellas shade our lifestyles,
but
we still get dripped upon,
honey drip,
you slipped from my thoughts,
but were caught in the cobwebs spun in the web of deceit,
beneath.
So sweet, sticky, hippy wild child, pretty lady,
evaded me,
daily.
I can’t get enough of you lately,
I see you in daydreams
as you make yours come true.

I’m right at home waiting on you.