So lonely now the road I travel so far from what I have known,
Empty and in darkness, borne by pain, so I choose to walk alone.

Where are the faces that once I knew so well?
Abandoned or forsaken along the pathway to this hell.

Craving with a longing to know for real true loves hold,
But too scared of hurt again , safe but empty, I sit out in the cold.

Heart of many fragments and a mind that feels the same,
Trust and loves' illusions are the things I have come to blame.

How can I escape here? What is there to do?
For even if I could love again I could have no trust in you.

Something so fundamental broken and seemingly beyond repair.
So obvious to all who see it, they fear getting close enough to care.

A form of emotions scarecrow born of mind and shared by heart,
To chase real love and trust away before it has time to make a start.

So tired of being lonely, of being caught up in this spell,
Much too afraid to step outside, to replay what led me to this hell.

I seem destined to endure loneliness' never ending empty burn...
Broken mind the only ear to heart's desolate and pleading  yearn.

If you want to see what becomes of optimists just look upon the faces of those people coming out of betting shops and casinos.

A pessimist will tell you that optimism is an addiction that will cost you as much as you are willing to wager and eventually the house will win.

You can only be as optimistic as you are lucky.

So many years since the mirror showed the fairest of them all.
Long since the face, a friend once was, I do by memory now recall.
Who was this face, this man... this once was just a mere boy?
I knew him well so long ago in a world once knowing tastes of joy.

We walked in light and sun and no shadow harboured fears.
But that face no longer greeted me as the shadows grew by years.
I shared his hopes, his dreams and passions on so many sunlit day.
So long since did things yet fade and so too his image went its way.

So long since and yet I still recall him as if from some other life.
Slaughtered dream and hope and passion long dead upon fates knife.
How long since he and I were one, I cannot quite recall.
But perhaps that face I saw reflected was never there at all?

So many years ago... a lifetime so it seems...
When once my own reflection and I...
Shared a world inspired by hope and the same dreams.

A face, a man, a boy I thought I would always know,
So long since and too many years ago

Separated by half a world but united by their dream,
Two dreamers who would be lovers share in true loves theme.
In cottage upon a hilltop among trees in blossom their love stands,
Nightly, imagine being there together whilst tightly holding hands.

Each knows of the other dreaming love half a world away
Alternating as one loves by night and the other loves by day.
Thoughts so very similar of the love they wish to share.
Knowing that only by dreaming, together can they be there.

Imagined love by day and dreamed love to ease the night,
In mind alone, things that lovers do, tells each the dream is right.
Only by dream and imagined time there in that lovers place,
Can they know the others kiss and passion born of loves embrace.

And So nightly I will go by dream to that cottage on the hill
Where again she awaits and for our love, time is standing still.

I walked into life's library to seek perhaps adventures there.
Not really knowing what I sought my expectations unaware.

I looked first at the non-fiction upon shelves marked clearly with tape.
The more I looked yet did I realize it was from that I sought escape.

I chanced upon a section where great imagined dramas did abound.
Where mystic stories and strange creatures on the pages could be found.

Caught briefly by the imagined on the pages with heroes deeds upon.
I realized all was fantasy so through the pathway of books I ventured on.

Time passed as it tends by some scale that seemed so erratic in its flow.
As shelves and stories passed me by along the route I chose to go.

I came then to a section with a long queue of people standing there.
Patiently in their place and each with determined and focused stare.

What was it that drew them and caused this lengthened line?
Their looks suggested that the need, was very much like mine.

I had passed so many shelves with random people here and there.
But no other shelf or section for which this queue I could compare.

Through strong and strange compulsion I resolved to take my chance.
To join the much sought after line toward the shelf of "Love and Romance".

Not by rope from a branch nor by knife upon flesh have my pains been given to yield.

But by words on a page do I yet seek to make my wounds to become healed.

Thoughts like demons cast out to be left behind to help me better see the road still ahead.

Perhaps to see smiles and love once more, but if not, a world where I crave less to be dead.

I write not for my arts sake...
I write for my hearts ache...

I write not to remind myself...
I write to re-mind myself...