I’m no author, novelist or poet.
I’m just Me,
And don’t I know it.
I don’t need to be classified,
As long as I’m writing, I’m satisfied.

Typing out words, line by line,
I don’t care if they don’t rhyme.
I don’t care if my verses don’t scan:
I’m not always an Iambic Man.

I just say what I gotta say,
I’m not worried about any pay.
Words come to me without much bidding,
The world of its evils I hope to be ridding.

I love to spread lots and lots of Love,
Bringing peace to all like a messenger dove.
Things of beauty bring joy, John Keats rightly said,
To make us sleep easy when we go to bed.

So I’ll paint what I paint,
And sing what I sing,
Just letting those words
Do their magical thing.

Paul Butters

dating a writer
is like guessing the weather.
you think you know what you'll get,
but you never do.

you never know
because

she'll create a hero
from your weaknesses

and she'll write a great character,
from every last flaw.

she'll create a thousand plots  
from your worst nightmares.

she'll take every last thing you hate
and create something you'll love.

she'll turn your anger
into confessions of adoration,

and she'll make you,
everything you're not.

but worst of all,
she'll leave you wondering-
is it you she's in love with,
or things she's created from you?

but here's the beauty of it:

if you date a writer,
you'll never die.

if i just were more confident
if i just were sweeter
if my voice were higher
if my stomach smaller
if my face a better shape
if my laugh a better laugh
if i just adjusted to your every need
like the way you tune my guitar
on my bed
singing to me
(is it to me, or all the girls on my floor?
nightmares argue the case
frightfully)
if only
if only
if only
i was what he wants
i don't even know how to begin

You will not control me.
You will not control me.
You will not control me.

But you will compel me

to write you into my lines
to lock your image into my mind
to think about you all the time.

You will not change me.
You will not change me.
You will not change me.

But you will shape me

into what I am meant to be
into a better me
into a soul that is free.

You will not leave me.
You will not leave me.
You will not leave me.

But you will.

I hope you never reach
The day
Where you are lost for words
Because they're tangled up in
Agony.

I hope you never reach
The point
Where your innocence of
The world is
Robbed.

I hope you choose
Your friends and
Lovers wisely
So that you never have to
Discover what it feels like
To see those who you believed
Would take a bullet for you
Dance behind the
Trigger.

Hello?
Who am I?
Guess again.
Don't you recognise my voice?
No?
Why?
Well, you can hang up,
It's your choice.
But I just wanted to call
for old times sake.
You know:
Those times where we'd talk
at times we shouldn't have been awake.

Are you still there?
Can you hear me?
Oh, right.
You don't remember me.
Maybe I have the wrong number.
Well, I guess I'm sorry.

But before you let me go,
There's just one thing
I want you to know.
At the end of December,
when the mountains meet the snow.
I'll think of you, as always,
and I'll remember.
How it was me,
who once heard
your hellos.