Paula M. Puddephatt

I draw their spirits close to me and breathe,
and still I find, there's something to believe.
I need their energies to make me strong.
I hear the subtle echoes: Samhain's song.
...

coloured lights
swirling
through her mind
tonight
...

I could be said to be
falling in love
with a horse thief,
in spite of myself.
...

You trust. You hurt. I know the score, so why
do I let myself care? Why do I try
at all? Must my emotions always win?
By now, I must be on my final spin.
...

One day, when you've moved on too,
and I'm part of your history -
because, in the end, they always do -
will you think of me?
...

I shut the world out,
but not you, until
maybe in the end, I did -
but, still -
...

How did she know obsessions that are mine?
The ones I hadn't even formed back then?
Could she tell whom I was to meet and when?
I'm with her - on sanity's borderline.
...

She bleeds dark secrets. There is no way back.
She doesn't want to find one, anyway.
The pressure is intense. She starts to crack.
Somehow, she makes it through another day.
...

If false floors and trap doors,
and those fences of barbed wire,
could not keep me away -
...

And if fresh fantasies might see me through,
and give my world a lighter, brighter shade or hue -
must we still question what the mind can do,
or simply accept that, here and now, I write these words for you?
...

She grabs at each distraction,
in the hope that she might find
something that can ease the pain,
and fill her heart and mind.
...

Her maternal love was wasted.
No-one hears her when she cries
through the night for her lost babies,
and a life so full of lies.
...

The ravens in my mind are dying.
The people in my world are lying.
Nothing's for real - but scarlet on steel.
I'll endure the pain, until I can feel
...

And even now - I can't believe it,
but the potential's there -
that someone else could get inside my mind,
and make me care.
...

Can't analyse the type of love I feel
when all I want to do is scream: 'Don't die.'
It's not like Cancer. It just seems unreal -
and, even though, sure, I've been close myself, why
...

At seventeen, so radiant,
hair raven black, eyes emerald green -
the local lads, they just don't stand a chance.
Lucy's heart is in the village church -
...

There was an eclipse,
and a violent storm, on the afternoon
that Lucy Lightfoot disappeared.
Only Lucy's horse ever saw
...

It seemed a very heavy price to pay -
for seven pomegranate seeds, consumed.
Half of every year,
to be spent here, in the land of the dead.
...

The world is no less beautiful,
but life has taught her
harsh lessons - and some days,
it feels almost impossible
...

Ebony darkness
weaves her own melodies
into the silent sky.
...