Contributor: Paul Tristram

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Sobriety in small doses
can cleanse a weary soul.
Yet, sobriety without measure
can bore beyond control.
I have a snake pit in my belly
that always needs feeding more.
The downside to dependency is
not knowing through which door?
The Demons will come visiting
to trick or treat my sanity.
To milk away my goodness
to forge a darker personality
There is a darkness about him
I hear people often say.
The Devil holds his heart
which is why he smiles that way.

Twice this week, I hit the street
directionless but determined.
To break down the barriers
to play Pied-Piper to the vermin.
I glow inside with discomfort
my speech is slurred with sarcasm.
My memories have become physical
each one a painful, shameful spasm.
The future looming always ominous
is the wick to which I fly.
A miserable moth of melancholy
sizzling onwards just to die.
Oh, but I am only joking, ha, ha!
I’m really as happy as the sun.
The darkness that is about me
is just the shadow of your fun.


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Paul Tristram is a Welsh writer who has poems, short stories and sketches published in many publications around the world, he yearns to tattoo porcelain bridesmaids instead of digging empty graves for innocence at midnight, this too may pass, yet.