my grip is slipping,
and falling scares me.
my world is fading away.
h      
          e
                     l
                             p
       m
                 e

h
          e
                    l
                          ­     p
          m
                     e

writing was an escape but even now words slip off the paper like tear drops.

.
… and the look of fear
co-existing with pain
     on a contorted face
that knows
it is in mortal difficulty,
as ragged fingers

     clutch,

          clutch,

at a fire they cannot reach,
ripping agonies react,
     to an enforced cardiac episode,
as blackness closes in
gravity heaves its hardest,
but the fall is fake,
a red herring in the event,
     and the weight of the world

presses down, searching,
retracts
waiting,
presses down, searching,
retracts
waiting,

as breath is given freedom
in exhalation to the light,
     that slowly rolls back
the pitch hue of the void,
returning back images,
feeling,
a new belief,

          and the fire inside quietens,

                    and the fire inside quietens,

to the intense glow
     of a burnt aching heart.



© Pagan Paul (2018)

There it lay forgotten,
in the shelf gathering dust -
A chapter that had once been opened,
and halfway through shut.

Maybe some day,
in the future near or far
Another may wipe the cover
and with love pick it up

They might turn the pages,
might even read to the end
So don't expect your bookmark
to stay on the same page.