I talk to the moon when
I find myself alone
Start writing with my pen
And throw myself a stone

I talk to the moon when
I start thinking of you
As I count one to ten
What am I supposed to do?

I talk to the moon when
I feel I'm losing my mind
Fight for it when I still can
Cause I don't want a rewind

I talk to the moon when
I felt true happiness
Feels like in a coffin
Releasing loneliness

Now I talk to the moon when
I have a story to tell.

Maybe I grasped the wrong notion
A site meant for poetry in motion
Random musings are easy to find
One sentence isn’t a poem in my mind!

Not all poems have to rhyme
But some of your writings are a crime
A felony against art and words that wield power
These low effort attempts, hundreds each hour

I bet Sylvia Plath turns in her grave
At these pathetic bids some of you gave
Where is the rhapsody, where is the verse?
Your words should be in the back of a hearse

Where is the structure or composition?
Posting your crap was a poor decision
You might hate my words, though they are true
In my opinion, you have some work to do!

.
Poems are plush curtains,
of words,
pulled together
to hide the world
from the raw emotion
that flows
out of a writer
casting pearls.


© Pagan Paul (14/02/21)

These fantasies always end with you staying. Here, my heart can afford to break itself, over and over for you. Here, I never had to let you go again. Here, my love for you always — always outweighs the heartbreak. My love, these fantasies — they always end with us staying.

I guess some things, I wish we had. Some things, I wish were ours. Some things, I wish were us.

In all ways, I have lined up my scars and written them insincere apologies; each word — a mockery and a transgression carelessly thrown in the night. I have allowed dread to settle deeply between my collar bones: an arrow buried between antlers until it unsettles and chokes. I have sewn sadness into my skin, like a dainty, silk sundress; worn it to church and to the funeral mass of a little girl I had to ****. She'll never know how much I mourned her, how on some nights, I still do. In all ways, I have looked at my skin, my fingers, and calves, and tailbone and saw a body that's never known gentleness or summertime souls or the gentle falling of the rain.

So after all of that, how, then, can I hold my heart now, without ever breaking it?


Tell me — how long can I hold my heart without ever breaking it?

the heaviest thing i’ve ever encountered
was the silence that hung low between
hovering bodies
—a weight bearing down on shoulders so worn
and chests so tight.
breaths quivering as fists shut, withdrawn of
any life and color.

the silence spoke volumes, it whispered
things that need not be said out loud.
the silence reminded you of the distance
that had grown over the course of time,
of the changes that took place but were
being cast aside for either one’s vanity.

this silence bore down on strained necks and
crooked spines. it demanded recognition.
but nobody wants to acknowledge
the obvious when the silence is telling you
it’s time to let go.

—210126; when silence becomes the loudest thing in the room, it’s best to acknowledge it and to take it for what it is

such softness i covet compulsively, and yet all i can do is watch myself dig a mass grave for the white tulips i ripped apart. watch myself crumble like weathered obsidians. watch myself unbottle self-addressed apologies, and choke on all the softness i never had —

until all there is is my skin, drenched in ghostly disquiet.
until all there is is an ugly sight of breaths, hoarded as they fall.
until all there is is just breaking.

and until all there is,




is me.