We are aware that we are,
But who is there to tell?
Will anyone know we were,
Once we leave this mortal shell?

Are we here just by chance?
From a Cosmic Dance?
No Hot Jupiter near our Sun,
Our system is The One
For Life.

We may well be unique,
The rest of space looks bleak.
A single winning bet
Consciousness did beget.

We are the living race,
Here by God’s good grace.

Paul Butters

on the common ground
where all happens, and nothing

we meet all the time
and never once at all

these shared experiences
unconsciously lived

happen and do not
both at the same junction

You dropped me
like loose change into
a homeless man's
Burger King
cup.

I would have preferred
to be thrown,
to be
smashed
into a hundred
thousand shards of
broken cardiac muscle
- because at least
that would mean you had
made an
effort.

I wanted you to
push me away with
all of your strength,
leaving me to trip
and fall
right out of
love with you.

But you merely
nudged me aside
- too weak to break the
chewing-gum strands
which stretched
between my lips
and yours.

I was
stuck and
I was
craving,
maybe out of habit
rather than desire.

Too short to reach
the emergency exit
I was left
wishing you had made me
feel a little
taller.
There were twelve inches
worth of difference
between us,
everything that you
were and I
was not.

But I guess I got it
wrong.

You are not
six feet
two inches
of man
You are
six feet
two inches
of cowardice  
and your
extra large
t-shirts correspond
to your
extra large
apathy.

Because you didn't
care.

You didn't care about
my five foot
inferiority complex
or the five feet
of reassurance
it would have taken
to make me
feel worth
something.

But I will not be
confined
to the gap between
your height
and mine.

I have the strength
to pull myself away
and snap
those chewing-gum
strands
I don't need you
to make the effort
I'll make it
myself.

And if you still feel
inclined
to drop me
like loose change,
that's a **** lucky
homeless man.

the truth about love is



          it leaves right when you are comfortable


the other truth is



          love is not forever no matter what they say


the truth about death is



          it doesn't even hurt that long


the final truth about it is



          *i hope mine is today

You used to be the golden sun and lingering kisses.
But now you're the reason thorns grow around my heart
and the reason my poetry is filled with metaphors for heartbreak.