Sometimes, it's not the unbearable pain that makes you hurt yourself,

It's the emptiness, the hole on your chest, that makes you want it all to end.

While I'm all about him, he's all about her.

Yesterday morning I woke at 4AM again
And once more my mind got churning.
I juggled with some words in my head,
Composing free verse on how I write my poems.

I wondered whether I should grab a pad
And write.
Or even get on my laptop.
But I made myself go back to sleep,
Forgetting it all.

So here I am,
A day later at 10.30AM,
Pouring out these verses:
A sort of Stream of Consciousness.

No thought of structure
Or metre
Or rhyme.
Just emphasising certain words and phrases
By giving them separate verses
Of their own.

Something I learnt once
When reading a book in Pudsey Library
About how to teach kids to write poetry
An easy way.

Unfettered by considerations of metre or form,
You can express yourself freely,
As deep as you wish.

Just let your emotion
Or Philosophy
Run free.
Let your words cascade
Over those shiny pebbles.
Babbling along through winding willows,
To crash over waterfalls
In a crescendo of sound.

A stream that sparkles in the light
Of sun or moon (and stars),
Wafted by scents of abundant flowers
And sappy cut grass.
God's Grandeur radiating all around.
Enjoy.

Paul Butters

They said that I should forgive you, for I won’t be able to write. Those people who can’t forgive will have a hard time writing.

I prove them wrong.

This pain that I feel are the words that I write. This broken heart that I have is the reason that keeps me going.

I still can’t forgive. How can you easily forgive someone who gave you so much memories to miss? How can you easily forget those memories if they made you the happiest? How can I forgive him if he took that happiness away...because he took himself away from me?

How can you forgive someone if he made you live in a dream you’ve always wanted only to leave, just like that?

I still can’t forgive. I still can’t let go because I know that because of this pain, I always knew that it was all real.

I almost needed you

I almost dialed your phone number in the middle of the night because I can’t sleep and I’m in tears and my heart is in pain and I needed to hear your voice just to make it alright

I almost broke down when you said you couldn’t come to meet me the next day and I almost told you how much it made me down and I almost begged you to come because I needed to see you because I can already feel the ache of needing your comfort in my bones because I’m scared

I almost hugged you when the thing I was so afraid of finally happened
I almost held your hand when I didn’t know what to do anymore
I almost touched you, I almost showed you my tears, I almost showed you that I’m in pain, I almost showed you that I was scared and I don’t know what to do anymore

I almost showed you how much of a mess I was

I almost showed you that I was crying but I hid my face on your shoulder and when I realized that it makes me ache for your comfort more, I stood up and skipped away like my tears weren’t falling, my heart wasn’t shattering

And when I came back and when you tilted my head up and asked me if cried, I almost told you the truth. I almost broke down and screamed that I needed you. I almost told you my greatest fear. I almost told you that I felt so weak, that I need you so badly to hold me. I almost told you that I’m already breaking and I need you to hug me. I almost told you that I needed your comfort and I needed you to tell me that I’m not who I think I am. That I am worth it, that I am not a failure, that I did my best and everything’s going to be okay. I almost told you that I was so scared. I almost cried in front of you. I almost let myself shatter in front of you.

I almost needed you.

But I’m glad I didn’t.

Because I made it. I made it up until today. And if I didn’t hold myself back, I might haven’t realized that I can be strong.

That I am strong.

I don’t want to be a slave for love.

I don’t want to remember someone whenever I go to a place, or see a thing or smell something familiar.

I don’t want to feel something whenever I hear a familiar song.

I don’t want to cry over some memories I had with someone just because I know that it’ll never happen again.

I don’t want to miss anyone anymore.

I don’t want to fight for anyone. I don’t want to live for anyone. I don’t want to spend my whole life believing that love will make me happy and I don’t want to spend my whole life trying to get the love I think I deserve.

I don’t want to feel something so unbearable that I’d do anything to follow it, like when I miss your skin against my skin as we cuddle every night while watching our favorite movie and it’s driving me mad because all I feel is this coldness around me and I need to breathe in your scent again but I can’t do anything except to let the tears fall on my cheeks while staring at the sheets of my bed where we once had our best moments together.

I don’t want to be tied down by love anymore. I don’t want to be attached and dependent. I don’t want to be weak like this anymore.

I don’t want to feel or even do these things anymore. For once, I want to be free. I want to be free from the hurt that love caused me. Free from the chain of thorns that love had wrapped around me.

Love, you, see, is cruel. It will ****** you at first, will make you see beautiful things. It will give you hope that maybe, just maybe, you’ll finally be happy. It will make you feel the warm that you have missed after years of living coldly and alone. It will make you curious, it will make you wonder ‘what if’. It will make you feel beautiful things. It will lure you to invite it in you and then, it will make you its slave once you let it.

It will eat you from the inside. It will control you. It will pain you. You can’t do anything but to follow it. It will only make you suffer. Do what it wants or you’ll feel unbearable things to the point where you want to rip your heart out just to make it stop…but you can’t. So you’ll just lie down on the cold tiles of your bathroom floor, hugging yourself while water spills from the faucet and tears streams down from your eyes, and you, internally screaming while love breaks your heart into pieces.

It will make you vulnerable. It will make you live in danger and with constant fear on your mind. It will only cause you nothing but chaos that will leave a hole on your chest that you won’t know how to fill once it’s done driving you mad.

Then, it will leave you destroyed.
And you won’t be the same anymore.

Today, my friends made fun of depression.
They laughed about suicide.
They pointed out the cuts on my hands and arms
And they laughed some more.

"I'm going to slit my wrist too
And even put a band-aid on it!"
And they laughed again
While looking at me.

They made faces
While drawing lines on their skin
Mimicking how I had cut mine
Laughing at how I bled

Is it that funny?
Did you even know what I felt that night?
When the world was blind
And you were thinking when's everything going to be alright

When the world was dead
Of your screams and cries
And no one can't notice you're drowning
And you're struggling to save your own life.

Do you even know how it felt like
When the blade drew blood on my own skin
What kind of satisfaction it felt
Knowing that I was hurting?

Is it that funny?
That I had put bandages on my wounds
Because I was embarassed
To show deep inside how it hurts?

Is what I did that funny?
That you laughed so hard
You almost can't catch your breath
And it even made you tear up?

I also felt that
I also can't breathe that night
And it's because I was crying
But I was gritting my teeth instead of a grin.

Is it funny,
To have these monsters inside your head
Whispering how no one loves and cares about me
And I deserve all this pain and I should die?

Is it funny,
When I finally gave in to my demons
And searched for that new blade my mother made me buy because I lost the old one?

Is it funny,
That I was so drained
From giving all the love that I have
To someone who would never see my worth?

Is it funny,
When I finally had the courage to cut my own skin
And the stinging sensation I started to feel
And I heard my demons cheer?

Is it funny,
When they whispered "cut it deeper!
You deserve to die
Because nobody loves you!"?

Will it make you even more happy,
If I'll cut it deeper next time
And you'll see me on the floor of my room
Blood pooled around me?

I'd like to hear you laugh at me again
But I know
That I won't be breathing and feeling anymore
When that next time comes.