You are not my world, you are not my everything. You shouldn't be my world, you should never be my everything. But it's the way you make me feel like I was the brightest star in your whole galaxy. How you became the harmony to every song I have ever listened. It's the way I looked directly in your eyes and suddenly, heaven & hell was at peace and the stars have aligned. It's the way you made me feel like everything was alright.

You were a shining masterpiece until the way you disguised as a diamond that cut me open and left me bleeding a river. It's the way you tore down my walls then lit it on fire. It's the way you bury a dagger below my back. It's the way you poison me with your sharp lies. It's the way you scribbled all over me, which might seem very pretty, but darling, the ink killed me.

It will hurt when I look at you, it will hurt when I don't. And I'm here to tell you right now, to give you permission to **use me. Use every bit of my red heart. Drain me from all of my colors and being. Paint me black. Kiss your knuckles before you punch me in the jaw. Hold my hand as you stab me in the stomach. Kiss my lips as you pull the trigger through my head. Rip open my chest. Take my heart. You don't have to stitch me back. Hold my pumping muscle. I'm sorry if my blood would ever stain your high-end shoes. But I'm asking you to let me enter oblivion in your arms. For I would rather die a painful death with you, than live seeing you love anyone else.

His eyes were the sky;
they were blue and wide.
When it rained they turned
gray and stained his irises
for days on end, then once
again his eyes would send
me into a breezy euphoric
cleanse. Once the sky returned
blue, the white flowers bloomed.
We were free from gloom.

A•L•W

With you, I hang up the phone
like I’m taking a bandaid off --
swiftly and quickly.
They say that way,
there's much less pain.
Which is strange, because
I'm still able to feel some pain,
even if I pound on the "end call"
button to make not talking to you
less painful.

Amor mío, el mirarte es un arte.
el amarte es un arte; tu piel, tus curvas
tus definidos pómulos. Cuanto me gustaría ser aire, para que me respires por la eternidad, cuanto me gustaría ser el viento para pasar por tu cara día a día.

Amor mío, eres como el mar, no te miro fin, y no puedo quitar mis ojos de ti. Eres tan inmenso, tan profundo, tan vasto, lleno de tanta vida, te podría ver todo el día.

Amor mío, cuanto me duele que no me quieras, pero llegara, llegara el momento que te darás cuenta que nuestro amor, es por siempre. Somos tal  como la Luna y el Sol, tal vez separados, pero con un amor de por medio, sabiendo que su amor hace al mundo girar.

En fin, amor mío, tus ojos son un arte, tu suave piel es un arte, pero tu eres la forma de arte mas bella que jamás haya visto.

Morpheus has never been kind to me
His somniferous ways leave me wanting
Grasping at the cusp of a reality
As evanescent as the morning mist
That greets this reluctant gaze.

He exists to these sheathed
Bourbon eyes
Within the veiled carapace
Of the only form I've ever wanted more
Than necessity and air.
His torment lies
In false reunions, in joining and parting lips
In forest eyes that linger behind in my thoughts
Like the echo of a cannon
Long after it's wrought its own havoc.

Yes, that twisted Lothario
That Grecian sandman
Exists to overcharge the soul with
Hope so poisonous
Bodies and minds are wracked with it
Inspired by it
Haunted on into the waking world
Where he waits on the periphery
Eyes narrowed in the light
Of the waking world that renders him useless.

The sounds of sadness
The cacophony of a disorganized mind.
The pulsing heartbeat of the anxious
These are the echoes of the mind

The tears of depression
Bouncing against hard unforgiving concrete
The silently searing scars on the subconscious
A pain that cannot be beat.

These sounds echo all around us
Yet it seems we turn an unlistening ear
Just because you cannot see the scars
Doesn't mean somebody isn't fighting a battle my dear

A metaphor, the ultimate actor.
Let’s mix it into a Whisky blend.
To rhyme or not to rhyme,
That is the question.
Let’s go for no.
That metaphor –
A fusion of words and meanings.
Compound image.
Subtle synthesis of correlations coalesced.
Marriage of minds.
Beyond comparison.

The poet, weaver of words,
Composing symphonies
Of spoken sounds.
Mixing metaphors:
Chemical brews
Of nectar,
For all to savour
In the theatre
Of the written page.

Paul Butters