Poetry: Selections from Adam Paxton

Charmer

How best to say

I wish that I could die for you

In some heroic sort of scene

In some picturesque

And pretty mess

In a better breed of dream

You come with me

Everywhere,

I can’t shake your shade

But I harvest your remains

For these pretty verses

We traverse a rough trade, here.

Heartache and grief in

A straight exchange

For these little lines.

I compromise. I make

The truth bend and twist

But I swear it’ll never break.

I just can’t tell which you were,

The charmer or the snake.

Greggs, 7:30 AM

I stand in line waiting for my coffee

Like I do every day. They never

Seem to remember or recognise me.

I think that might be what I like.

They couldn’t give a shit.

 

And I lurk

Here in my coat, wired and awake

In the pale morning hours, a ghost,

An apparition fed on java beans and

Copious codeine and gabapentinoids.

 

I get my coffee and return to my house

Across the street, literally twenty seconds

Away. I could make a coffee at home but I don’t,

Fuck you.

 

My life isn’t turning out how I want it to.

 

But I’m here writing about it, and apparently

That’s something. It’s affirming, or something.

My whole adult life I’ve felt like a child

The moment they realise they’ve lost

Their parents in a supermarket and are

Swallowed up by terror and uncertainty,

 

This ragged slanted panic.

 

I’m not what you would call high-functioning.

I don’t play well with other people. I won’t leave

Your tertiary friends particularly impressed.

They say mixing these drugs is potentially lethal.

Well I’m trying my gosh darn best.

Three more. Come and get me motherfucker.

I’ve been fighting me my whole life, and I haven’t

Quite got me yet.

 

There’s still time, if you’re taking bets.

Who’s Saving You Now?

All of my saviours come with

Such a sweet sting in the tail.

You’ll kiss their chemical feet

And curse their fucking name.

 

Yeah, kiss me sweet barbiturate

Tease my sick chagrin.

You teasing torture I can’t tolerate

I’ll take your poison all the same

And as I slip into this nightmare

Handful of pills and guinness glass

I’ll wonder exactly who laughs last

Is it the snake or the grass?

Is it the hider of the hidden

At the confusion of the victim?

All I know is somethings missing

And I see no way for me to win.

Easy Kid

 

You’ve been rough around every edge

For as long as you can recall.

It’s not for lack of trying;

You just languish in the long light;

A wretch, a gremlin, a fetishist for dying.

Yet you still come alive with the winking eyes

My darling lad, what timing!

These pathetic attempts at better sense

That scarce resemble trying;

With your prickled skin and barefoot brain

In this sick and blistered bruise of night.

You know you won’t live long this way,

I get the sense that’s what you like.

Majula Revisited

Fucking hurting myself again. We all do it,

I suppose.

We all have that well we wade back to,

That intersection where that mess made

Of method and madness meet.

The key is to find a way to make it feel

Special. Like only you do it like this,

In these measurements, in this manner,

For these reasons. And then, after,

When your hands are shaking,

And you’ve lost track of the damage

You’ve done, take that plaintive traipse

To whoever it is who cares for you

Most, and you tell them, you say

Look at the mess I made of me. Look what I couldn’t help but do to me.

You may pity yourself, but Oh my,

Darling don’t you do it beautifully!

Will it be this way forever? You crow

And of course they tell you No,

So sincere, for a moment

You’re even flirting with believing. But,

You wonder, sooner or later even

Those loved-lidded lenses must

Find focus and see sense;

I syphon the time from

Gracious hosts of good intentions

And reply with pleasant smiles

As I plot to circumvent them.

Adam Paxton is a poet from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. He is an anxious and fearful boy.