It’s the fear of seeing my old self

Complete with old ways, thoughts and habits

Taking over my consciousness and current existence of being

Causing me to resort, too easily, to a familiar self-destruction

~

This demon sees straight through my soul

Picking out casually like grapes my deepest and darkest fears

Exposing my weaknesses to me, displaying them with pride

Showing me the quickest and easiest solutions to all that I deny

~

I no longer see myself through my own eyes

But rather through those old ones back from some youthful place

The choices I have are those available to that lost and frightened child

An offered hand of love concealing an irreparably damaging knife… Read More

~

Business Booming For Rent-a-Friend Agencies

~

I am a best man, an old friend, even a husband

For those who need that special someone

I never judge their motives nor their reasons

I am happy to put on that predefined face

~

For friendship isn’t just a case of reciprocity

Neither is it a process of bartering

It’s a sense of security that you feel when it’s there

A loss all too revealing of oneself when not

~

Family then is a different thing altogether

A knowledge of a comfortable home and a formal awkwardness

Where things that need to be said often never are

A festering buildup… Read More

What if it was just that one little thread

Which meant the difference between him going to her instead of me

What if it actually never happened

Existing only as another ‘what might have been’

~

What if I were to weave this thread in my tale

Diverting it into a vacant and adjacent stitch of fate

For me that’d be a far more refined resolution

Than the tears that run down when all is too late

~

Copyrighted image belongs to Sharon Smith (portfolio)

I am needed somewhere urgently

Shepherded through a massive crowd

Time is short as I weave in and out

I think of nothing but the desperate rush I am in

Until a bewitching face flashes past

Headed in the opposite direction

Her eyes shine out from beneath her veil

Glowing as she pushes something: a pram or a stretcher

She is so familiar to me but I am unrecognised

There is no eye contact

Nor the slightest acknowledgment 

As if we weren’t supposed to meet yet in this alternate life

My aides grow impatient

Many shoulders bump into mine

My wild and hurried steps now tamed

And just like that she is gone

Lost in the flock and hidden from my sight

The job at hand turns insignificant as she, now, is my urgency

 … Read More