Don't worry darling,
When I push you away,
I promise,
You won't feel a thing.

I'll be the one,
To burn in the fire,
The smoke,
Causing my eyes to sting.

I know it's for the better,
I'm a burden,
Don't you see?

I promise I won't blame you,

Who would want to be around me?

some days he's gone
some days she's here
some days he's here
some days it's here

but on the days he & she are gone
I don't notice it
I don't feel different
but some people do

you aren't entitled to know
if he's here or gone
you aren't me either way

he's gone here to stay.

I had not planned on dying today,
It was not on my list of, ‘things to do’,
How strange, I think, eyelids crushing tears
How very strange, body crushed beyond repair.

Splattered beneath a split-giant-oak,
Its yellowish heart, splayed open,
Pretty though, gleaming in a lightning flash,
The remaining upright, sentinel-like-spike,
Illuminated, so bright, so very bright.

Rain, lashing rain, mingling with my tears,
Thunder rumbles, tumbles, fades away,
Pain, clashing pain, surging with my fears,
Heart thudding, the beat, slowly fading away.

Breathing laboured, chest collapsing, beyond aid,
My groin slaked in blood, **** and stinking ****,
Hips; that will never again gyrate with pleasure,
Speared by a branch through my lower gut.

An ‘unmentionable wound’ so unbecoming,
The real smell of death, the smell of war,
Upon a medieval battlefield, minus the ale,
Typical, eh, could use a drink right now.

I mange to draw one small breath, a gasp,
But I know it’s my last, my very last,
Darkness pressing in all around, so cold.

I even manage a smile, thinking,
This was not on my list of, ‘things to do’,
I had not planned on dying today.

© Paul Chafer 2014

nobody warns you about the first boy who tells you he wants to marry you.

nobody warns you about the tangible shift in the universe when he parts his lips to smile.

nobody warns you about the poetry he'll write you or how your knees will weaken or the melancholy hidden between the layers of his laughter.

nobody warns you that miles will morph into lightyears and you will curse the ocean for being the only thing that keeps his fingers from resting between yours.

nobody warns you about the day his sweater doesn't smell like him anymore.

nobody warns you that human hands are incapable of holding a person together.

nobody warns you that sometimes love is not enough, no matter how much you wish it was.

nobody warns you about the crippling nostalgia that renders you breathless.

nobody warns you about the nights when silence screams for your blood.

nobody warns you about the crater that forms in your chest in the middle of the night when he doesn't answer.

nobody warns you about how it's going to feel when he tells you he's in love with someone else.

nobody warns you that forever is a lie.

- m.f.

Pessimists are good lenders -
because they know
I’ll never return what I borrow
and it’s not worth trying to get
me to return anything

Pessimists are honest
because they tell me I’m horrid
and worthless and have no talent –
whereas my wife tells me lies about how
unique and fantastic I am
and how I’m destined
for greatness and fame
the same lies my parents and teachers
and all the sugary people in my life
told me to believe in
and so brought me to grief and megalomania–
better a pessimist than incorrigible liars

Pessimists let me do what I want:
jump the queue, rob them in daylight
steal their cars and take what I like -
because they say, with a helpless shrug:
“That’s human nature – especially people of his kind!”

Pessimists tell me the world will end tomorrow
that I’m destined for hell and I’ll never come to good –
hey, that allows me reason never to try
enjoy life for the moment
and just cruise along and let everybody else
die of stress and work-addiction

*Pessimists I love
for they validate everything I do ;
truly, they were made for me,
for they make my every wrong right…bless ‘em pessimists