I sit in the chair, gazing.
Was it stars? Was it the moon?
What was the sight that took my being away from the present?
It was not a vision, rather a feeling.
To escape
Escape can be easy but is not always the safest path.
A fork in the journey requires a decision.
One way is full of kindness,
The other of pain
What would you decide?
The kindness brings numbness with it
While the pain brings fear
Fear which is beyond your comprehension.
Fear which creates the pain
Pain so intense it is felt in every inch of the physical body.
So you choose kindness?
The kind type of numbness that is as beautiful as a drug
Yet as ugly as the comedown
Take a step back and watch it play out
No pain, no fear
However the emptiness is haunting
The sound distorted and lingering
The prompts to face the pain and fear become louder
Stronger
More persistent
Snap
The focus shifts back to reality
No more fading
Just now a reality which has a little more emptiness ingrained within it

.
Bare feet pound along the pavement
yet there is not feeling.
The connection with the tangible solid
has with it no true healing.

The detached mind floats up high
a million miles away.
Terra firma are just empty words,
stout rock becoming clay.

As retraction of the emotions sits
apart from what is real.
A no-man's land of security shrieks
'this is what I feel'.

Withdrawal has its positive notes,
protection from the pain.
Keeping close the hearts secret safe,
never to be killed again.

Autopilots most clever disguises hide
that which should be faced.
But burying reality in cold defiance
renders it all but erased.

© Pagan Paul (29/08/17)

I'm sorry, but I cannot give,
without being given .
Though my fee is fair.
So please; Do pay.
If you want me to care.

It's just they way it now is.
A brand new start,
Since I privatised my heart

My blood may run green,
But I'm not mean.
Or full of malice.
But only if you pay,
Can I give you more
Than fay sympathy.

It's just the way it now is.
A brand new start,
Since I privatised my heart.

5 | 31 Poems for August 2017

I’ve become well-acquainted with these streets – from University Road all the way down to Park Street.
My heart skips a beat when my words touch hearts like Alex Panttiere and that’s why these hands keep writing.
You left without saying goodbye, you could’ve at least told me why.
You easily detached yourself like there were no feelings between us.
Like I didn’t love you hard enough, soft enough or even warm enough.
For weeks on end, I began hating you for leaving me the way you did.
Yet here I am writing all these words and somehow still missing you.
I’m slowly finding my way back to myself again no matter how severe the pain.
I’ll pick myself up and finally find the strength and courage to love again.
Maybe in your quiet time at exactly the right time, I can be your true valentine.
Sometimes jacarandas fall with no intention of lighting up the streets with their purple blooms again.

4 | 31 Poems for August 2017

Stories about how the girl I was crushing on crushed my feelings.
Stories about how I dug my own grave right after the masquerade.
Are diamonds still forever if whoever you pictured spending your eternity with isn’t the one you’re committed to?
Before she puts the blame on me just let her know that I was committed too.
Detachment is something she was always good at and I still do not know why she let me go.
My poetry was never meant to be this revealing – I’m gradually letting go of all my past demons.
I was wrong when I thought I’d always be supported by the people I believe in.
I should just call it quits and stop seeing the good in people – it drives me crazy having this much of a loving heart.
Are diamonds still forever if whoever you pictured spending your eternity with isn’t the one you’re committed to?
We should’ve done this a long time ago – we should’ve stopped wasting our relationship on building a relationship.
Detachment has become the only way to cope, I’m hanging by a thread and I hope no one cuts the rope.

Ego is full of words
Peace is speechless
It has nothing to prove
It accepts pain with a smile
And thanks the Earth
For the gift of feeling

I am a demon
I am my wicked thoughts

An anarchist to everything
Pure, simple and true.

I clean my teeth with your despair
destroy your dreams with one simple laugh
I can twist your words like curls around a finger

and yet
I am my own demon picking at my own voices
hoping they would crack and bleed
just another ant on the surface or a zero in binary code
craving to be something honest
maybe even simple
up high on the mountains with delicate, glass bones
I want to cause celebration from my own destruction.