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Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Flowers. Today, I stood in a store choosing flowers because I was sick #poetry #poem

Flowers.

Today,
I stood in a store
choosing flowers
because I was sick
and no one was coming.
No one was going to notice
that I needed medicine,
that I hadn’t eaten.
And somewhere between
the checkout
and the cold air outside,
grief came roaring back
like a door
being kicked open
and a fist slamming into my chest.
Because my dad
would have come.
He would have known
before I said anything.
He would have brought
what I needed
and probably even something
I didn’t ask for.
And I would not have had
to stand there
holding flowers
I bought for myself
and accept that
once again
there is no one coming.

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

What a pathetic little victory still here. Not living. Not safe. Not wanted. Just successfully not disappearing for another night. And somewhere inside me the child who learned to hide is still crouched beneath the stairs, holding her breath, waiting for someone to decide what happens to her next.

161

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Not Gone Yet I’m not alive. I’m just not gone yet. There is a difference between breathing and being here. I wake. I work. I answer questions. I make coffee. I feed the dogs. I say I’m fine with the practiced precision of someone signing for a package they never ordered. #poetry #poem

I think she left quietly.
No slammed door.
No final speech.
Just one day
she stopped believing
that being needed
was the same thing
as being loved.
So now I exist
like a light left on
in an empty room.
Technically burning.
Technically here.
Not alive.
Just not gone yet.
2/2

2101

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Through another’s eyes. #poetry #poem She’s difficult. She’s unstable. She’s too sensitive. She’s angry. She’s impossible to please.

She’s difficult.
She’s unstable.
She’s too sensitive.
She’s angry.
She’s impossible to please.
And now every wound I carry
looks like evidence
against me.
Nobody sees
who taught me to flinch.
Nobody sees
the pain behind the fragility.
If they look,
They see me crying
and not what happened before.
Unstable.
They see me withdraw
and not who made speaking dangerous.
Sensitive.
They see a broken woman
because they never saw
what it cost her
to keep pretending.
Difficult.
They see me shout
But never stop to question
what made me so upset.
Angry.
A woman who’s learned that “sorry”
Means “get over it”
and freezes.
Impossible.
1/2

So I perform.
I laugh at the right places.
I say we’re fine.
I stand beside you
while something inside me
is screaming
this isn’t a family portrait.
It’s a crime scene with better lighting.
It’s the shame
of what my life became,
and that I have become
an accomplice to the lie.
I help you carry it.
I protect the narrative
that protects you.
I swallow the truth
so nobody has to wonder
why the woman beside you
looks so fucking tired.
Because if I tell it,
I become crazy.
If I defend myself,
I’m vindictive.
If I leave,
I destroyed the family.
If I stay,
I must have chosen this.
There is no version of the story
where you are responsible.
You made sure of that.
2/2

071

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Is This All There Is A weighted ‘comfort’ against my chest. A machine to talk to when the room gets too quiet. Poems. Pictures. Dogs at my feet. Small inventions for making absence less obvious. #poem #poetry

193

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Bomb Disposal I have become very good at finding the wires. There is always a red one somewhere, bright beneath the dust. #poetry #poem

Bomb Disposal
I have become very good
at finding the wires.
There is always
a red one somewhere,
bright beneath the dust.
I kneel carefully.
Breath held.
I was taught
long before I knew
I was learning
that careless movement
could be dangerous,
that certain sounds
meant I fucked up,
that silence
was the wild card
of shitty wiring.
1/2

Now my hands hesitate
before I do.
They recoil
before anything happens.
Maybe the bomb
has already been disarmed.
Maybe the timer
was never running.
Maybe there was never
a bomb at all
Only the knowledge
that there could be.
Fear is not particular.
It keeps the address
after the house is gone.
So I kneel,
mistaking vigilance
for safety,
waiting almost hoping
for the moment
my hands might betray me.
Nothing detonates.
Yet.
2/2

0143

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

fuck this fuck the pretending that everything happens for a reason. fuck the lessons we’re supposed to be grateful for because suffering apparently needs a silver lining. #poem #poetry (As my dad would say I’m currently having an angry miss him)

0104

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Failure to send. I typed I need you. I read it once and deleted it. I replaced it with something safer: are you okay? #poem #poetry

I typed
I need you.
I read it once
and deleted it.
I replaced it
with something safer:
are you okay?
A question
that asks nothing of you,
that leaves no evidence
of the hand reaching out.
And when you say yes,
I say good.
You believe me.
You don’t know
I was hoping you’d ask
the question back.
You don’t.
And somehow
that is the cruelest part
I finally found the courage
to tell you I needed you,
and I hid it
so well
you never knew.

1397

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Because being wanted can make you feel beautiful. But being known- being known makes you feel real.

0125

Reposted by Prue Paimon

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Attention is currency. Not the kind you keep folded in a wallet, not the kind that accumulates interest while you sleep. It is stranger than money. It is the minutes you will never get back. We are all rich in something we cannot save. #poet #poem #poetry

Their attention.
Their curiosity.
Their patience.
Their tenderness.
Their inconvenient minutes.
The ordinary questions.
The small remembering.
The turning toward you
when there is nothing
to gain.
Because eventually
you understand:
everyone has a limited account.
Every day
the balance decreases.
Every hour
is an expenditure.
Every person
is an investment
in something that will never
pay us back.
Because attention
is currency.
And what someone
spends it on
is a kind of confession.
2/2

0114

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Little Glimpses I don’t tell the whole story. I leave keys to where I might be found. Its a passing sentence with something breathing underneath it. #poetry #poem

Little Glimpses
I don’t tell the whole story.
I leave keys
to where I might be found.
Its a passing sentence
with something breathing underneath it.
A thought left slightly unfinished.
A thing I almost say.
Sometimes
there is something tender
hidden inside an ordinary sentence.
I have learned
not to unwrap every part of myself
and place it in someone’s clumsy hands.
That’s the quickest way to ruin.
Some things remain
half-seen.
Just fragments
my little glimpses.
Perhaps real intimacy is
not knowing everything,
but noticing
when something has been left
just barely visible
and caring enough to ask.
Sometimes the smallest glimpse
is simply an invitation.

1125

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

0114

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Somehow I always miss the mark. The answer keeps moving. It always moves. And I keep chasing it with a red pen, marking myself wrong before anyone else gets the chance. I fail myself with such precision that there is nothing left for anyone else to criticize. #poetry #littleconfessions

0143

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Today I tried again. #poetry #poem I have unfortunately learned the art of leaving. I’ve become good at it. Tonight I tried another door.

I have unfortunately learned
the art of leaving.
I’ve become good at it.
Tonight
I tried another door.
A familiar horror
stood inside
and suddenly
the old wounds were fresh again.
I keep wondering
how many times
a person can try
before trying itself
becomes embarrassing.
How many times
can you say
maybe here
before the word here
starts to hurt?
I am tired
of almost.
Almost safe.
Almost home.
I don’t want another doorway.

241

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Shame on you. It was only a word until it landed on me. A joke, apparently. But there are words that arrive covered in stigma on silver platters. #poem #poetry

It was only a word
until it landed on me.
A joke,
apparently.
But there are words
that arrive covered in
stigma on silver platters.
And suddenly
something that belonged to me
my playfulness,
my curiosity,
my willingness to be a little strange
was standing beneath
a fluorescent light
being examined.
This is how we shame people
for wanting differently.
We take desire
and drag it into daylight
as though pleasure
requires a character witness.
And how convenient shame is
for the people wielding it.
They don’t have to understand you.
They don’t have to consent to your life.
They only have to find
the one word
that makes you look away
from yourself.
Shame on you.

090

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

A bag of bones behind the butcher’s counter, wrapped in paper, priced for what remains. #poem #poetry

A bag of bones
behind the butcher’s counter,
wrapped in paper,
priced for what remains.
A special refuse
of flesh and old scars,
trimmed down
to something almost salable.
A heart
hanging in the window
a delicate cut
the butcher marked down
but never managed to sell.
Horror
sold as something more
than scraps.

051

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Sobriety. #poem #poetry #sobertruth Sobriety didn’t fix anything overnight. It just forced me to sit in the front row and watch the circus No refunds.

Sobriety didn’t fix anything overnight.
It just forced me to sit in the front row
and watch the circus
No refunds.
No more disappearing into the crowd.
No more leaving when the act got uncomfortable.
No more pretending I couldn’t see
what was happening right in front of me.
I had to watch the old patterns perform.
The grief.
The fear.
The shame.
The people I kept trying to save.
The parts of myself I kept abandoning.
Sobriety didn’t make the circus disappear.
It handed me a ticket
and said,
Now stay.
 Watch.
 Learn who you are  when you’re no longer running away.

0102

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Lighthouse #poem #poetry It’s not that I can’t handle it. I can. I have learned how to stand in weather that would have broken me once. I know how to read the storm, how to brace myself, how to keep moving when the waves are high.

It’s not that I can’t handle it.
I can.
I have learned how to stand
in weather that would have broken me
once.
I know how to read the storm,
how to brace myself,
how to keep moving
when the waves are high.
I’m not asking for someone
to pull me from the water.
I’m asking for a lighthouse.
Something steady on the shore,
its light turning through the dark,
saying without asking anything of me:
You are not alone out here.
You can come home.
It’s the feeling
that no matter how hard
the weather becomes,
there is somewhere
I am held in the light.
Not protected because
I am incapable.
Protected because
I matter.

0237

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Counterfeit. #poem #poetry You can copy the handwriting, but not the hand. You can press the same ink into the same shapes, make the signature look almost right. Almost.

You can copy the handwriting,
but not the hand.
You can press the same ink
into the same shapes,
make the signature
look almost right.
Almost.
But pressure tells the truth.
The places the pen lingered.
The lines that trembled.
The words written hard enough
to scar the page beneath.
A counterfeit only knows
what it is meant to resemble.
It doesn’t know
what it cost to become.
That is the difference.
Imitation studies the finished page.
Identity carries the hand
that wrote it.
Some things cannot be replicated.
A facsimile may fool the eye
but it will always be
the lesser hand
beside the original.

030

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Attention, please. This is an announcement that the ride is about to begin. Please secure all thoughts and feelings. The mind may accelerate without warning. #poetry #poem

082

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Sometimes the creatures I create become too painful to look at.

060

Reposted by Prue Paimon

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

For the Beautiful Deviant You taught us that life could be a costume, a question, or a door left deliberately open and it was ok. That identity need not stand still for inspection. That truth might arrive one day wearing sequins, laughing at the solemnity of the room. #poetry #RIPTimCurry

02412

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

02412

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Dome. #poetry #poem I did not break it. That matters somehow. One moment there was glass between the world and the thing that was preserved the little body held perfectly still, the past made beautiful by refusing to move.

Picture of a taxidermy duckling no glass dome over top.

I did not break it.
That matters somehow.
One moment
there was glass
between the world
and the thing that was preserved
the little body
held perfectly still,
the past made beautiful
by refusing to move.
A shatter signifies an ending.
Glass everywhere.
And I stood there
among the pieces
mourning what, was promised,
that protection.
1/2

Perhaps the creature beneath the dome
was me in a sense.
A relic of a life
displayed beautifully.
That part of me
that keeps old versions
of people alive.
The woman
who still wants someone
to look at her
and think, Something about her  is worth protecting
even if it’s dead inside.
I have kept all of it
under glass.
Preserved so carefully
that nothing could change
but nothing could live, either.
Now there is no dome.
Only the thing itself,
standing exposed
in the ordinary light.
And that is frightening.

000

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Dolly. #poem #poetry Why do the good ones leave? Perhaps because some people are only lent to us long enough to teach us that kindness can have a backbone, that generosity can be fierce, that a woman can build an empire without surrendering the softness that built her.

Why do the good ones leave?
Perhaps because
some people are only lent to us
long enough to teach us
that kindness can have a backbone,
that generosity can be fierce,
that a woman can build an empire
without surrendering
the softness that built her.
You made a life
out of impossible things.
A small beginning
became something enormous,
but you never seemed
to confuse being enormous
with being above anyone.
You remembered
where you came from.
You carried the poor,
the overlooked,
the hungry,
the frightened,
the people who needed
a reason to believe
there might be something
waiting for them beyond
the circumstances
they were born into.
1/2

Perhaps
that is why losing you
feels so much larger
than losing one person.
Because some people
become landmarks.
You could find your way
by them.
You could look toward
their light
and remember
what decency looked like
in a world
that so often made cruelty
look clever.
Some people will leave.
But some people also
become part
of the light
by which we find
our way home.
2/2

2227

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Hope is a strange animal. It will crawl into the smallest spaces and convince itself there is room to live.

0102

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Windows Pain. #poetry #poem

$Windows pain. Something I could finally see through, or finally be seen through. So I pressed my hands against the glass, mistaking reflection for recognition. The pieces shattered shards became souvenirs, and I kept handing them over just to see how the light refracted in the pool of regret that stained the carpet. And in the madness of it all the madness is I can’t even look at myself anymore without seeing every piece I have given away.$

0236

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

What didn’t kill me took notes and tried again. It studied the weak places, memorized the hairline cracks, learned exactly where I was easiest to break. When I survived it didn’t call it a failure. It called it research and tried again. #poetry #poem

0101

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Gluttony a Poem. It devours. It bends over the feast like an animal unaccustomed to plenty, tearing instead of tasting, gulping instead of savoring, stuffing its mouth. Hands plunge into overflowing plates, fingers closing around whatever they find slick with grease, wet with sauce #poetry #poem

It devours.
It bends over the feast
like an animal unaccustomed to plenty,
tearing instead of tasting,
gulping instead of savoring,
stuffing its mouth.
Hands plunge into overflowing plates,
fingers closing around whatever they find
slick with grease,
wet with sauce,
crushing soft fruit between careless knuckles.
Juice runs over the wrist.
Gravy streaks the palm.
Something red drips from the corner
of a mouth already opening
for the next bite.
It does not wipe its face.
It does not slow.
It ignores the waste, the harm.
It chews with its mouth open,
half-swallowed mouthfuls
already being chased by the next.
Another bite
before the first has even disappeared.
The table groans beneath it
crushed crusts, split fruit,
bones picked clean,
meat torn apart by hand,
spilled wine soaking the cloth,
food scattered everywhere
like the aftermath of something ravenous.
1/2

And still it reaches.
The shirt is stained beyond saving.
The fingers shine with grease.
Sauce gathers beneath the chin
and trails down the throat.
Crumbs cling to the lips.
The evidence of every mouthful
remains while the body reaches
for another.
There is never enough.
Not because there isn’t enough.
Because enough
has ceased to matter.
Gluttony is not hunger.
Hunger knows when it is full.
Gluttony sees an overflowing table
and does not see abundance.
It sees an insult.
A challenge.
Something else to consume.
Is there anything else?
I’m starving.
And so it eats.
And eats.
And eats
until the feast is gone,
until the table is bare,
until there is nothing left
but the one thing
it never thought to spare
itself.
2/2

0142

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

I sent a poem into the morning and watched it disappear beneath the weight of silence. The sun climbed the window. Nothing came back. I told myself some doors take time to open. I waited until waiting became its own kind of weather. #poetry #poems #process

091

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

The poems I don’t share are the ones that know my name. They don’t dress the wound in metaphor. They don’t make suffering beautiful enough for someone else to admire. #poem #poetry

05018

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Bear in the front garden this morning how beautiful!

Picture of a black bear in a garden surrounded by grass and hostas.

260

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Version 2 Do you miss me? The way I sometimes miss you quietly, when no one is looking, when something familiar pulls me back. I wonder if you’d recognize me now, or if you’d look at all this change and think I’d become a stranger. #poetry #poem #addiction #recovery

Do you miss me?
The way I sometimes miss you
quietly,
when no one is looking,
when something familiar
pulls me back.
I wonder if you’d recognize me now,
or if you’d look at all this change
and think I’d become
a stranger.
You didn’t know
how much you would have to lose
before you learned
how to stay.
I wish I could tell you
that you were never weak
for wanting the noise to stop.
You just hadn’t learned yet
that escape can become
another kind of cage.
Do you miss me?
Because sometimes,
I miss you terribly.
I miss the certainty
of not having to feel everything.
I miss the comfortable lie
that tomorrow could be postponed.
But I don’t want her back.
I just want her to know
she made it here.

171

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Do you miss me? the girl I used to be. I wonder if you would recognize me now, or if you’d look at all this change and call it loss. #poetry #poem #addiction #recovery

Do you miss me?
the girl I used to be.
I wonder if you would recognize me now,
or if you’d look at all this change
and call it loss.
You didn’t know
how much we’d have to become
to survive becoming ourselves.
I wish I could tell you
that you were never weak
for wanting to be held.
That some of what you called broken
was only you,
trying desperately
to grow around the cracks.
Do you miss me?
Because sometimes,
I miss you.
But not enough to go back
at least not today.

0111

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Once upon a time I should have known better. But the truth is— I knew. I just wanted to be wrong. #poetry #poem

1112

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

She. I tell her, You are not the truth. She answers, I kept you alive. I bring reason. She brings memory. I bring facts. She brings fear. #poetry #poem

I tell her,
You are not the truth.
She answers,
I kept you alive.
I bring reason.
She brings memory.
I bring facts.
She brings fear.
I name every distortion
and she names every time
I was wrong to trust.
Back and forth
we circle the same battlefield,
neither willing to surrender
the territory inside my head.
By morning,
the room is quiet.
No victory.
No defeat.
Just two voices
still holding their weapons,

182

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Used Up The candle burns until there is nothing left but a suggestion of a blackened wick and a pool of regret. My pencil grows shorter with every word it gives away until it is rendered speechless. #poetry #poem

0102

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

I am hard to love. Too much history behind my eyes. Too many questions. Too much feeling. I do not know how to be casual with a heart. #poetry #poem

I am hard to love.
Too much history
behind my eyes.
Too many questions.
Too much feeling.
I do not know
how to be casual
with a heart.
I remember things
people wish I would forget.
I notice the hesitation
inside a sentence.
I have learned
to listen for the door
inside someone’s goodbye.
They call that difficult.
They say I need too much
reassurance,
honesty,
consistency,
the simple mercy
of meaning what you say.
Perhaps I am difficult
to those who only know
how to love carelessly.
Because I have been broken
in places no one could see.
Because now
within every trust
comes with a question
Will this hurt later?

1245

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

When the circus comes to town, the first thing you notice is the noise. Bright lights. Loud music. Everything moving at once. The acrobat is balancing on a thread of reason. The lion keeps pacing the same small circle, wearing a path into the floor. #poem #poetry #mentalillness

Some nights
the circus is enormous.
Some nights
there is only one performer
under one flickering light,
trying to remember
how to leave the stage.
Every thought a spectacle.
Every fear a sideshow.
Every memory
another ticket someone bought
to watch you unravel.
But you were never
the spectacle as foretold.
You are just another performer
trying to survive
inside the tent.
2/2

081

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

What an addict taught me They taught me that hunger is not always about wanting more. Sometimes it is about wanting less less noise, less memory, less of the unbearable weight of being awake inside life. They taught me how quickly shame can become a second skin. #poem #poetry

They taught me
that disappearing
can look an awful lot like coping.
That sometimes
the thing that is destroying them
is also the only thing
they have found
that makes the pain go quiet.
They taught me
that wanting to change
and knowing how to change
are two entirely different things.
They are not a monster.
They are not a cautionary tale.
They are a person
trying desperately
to become someone
they could live with.
An addict taught me
that recovery is not becoming
the person you were
before you broke.
It is learning
to build a life
with the pieces.
And sometimes
the person who teaches you
how to save yourself
is you.
2/2

06618

Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

I Don’t Wanna! #poetry I don’t want to be an adult in this dystopian nightmare. I want someone to say, come on, we’re going home now. Pick me up my arms hung around their neck and carry me off to somewhere else. I want to be excused from the meeting, the mortgage, (Apologies it’s long)

I don’t want to be an adult
in this dystopian nightmare.
I want someone to say,
come on, we’re going home now.
Pick me up my arms hung around their neck and care me off to somewhere else.
I want to be excused
from the meeting,
the mortgage,
the emails marked urgent,
the cheerful little notifications
asking me to rate
my experience of collapse.
I want to put my head down
on a desk
and wait for the world
to become reasonable again.
But apparently
I am the adult.
So I buy groceries
while they become more expensive,
pay bills
while everything burns,
make appointments,
remember passwords,
pretend the future
is a thing responsible people
are supposed to have.
1/3

I nod solemnly
at headlines
that would have sounded
like science fiction
when I was young.
Then I go to work.
Because apparently
the apocalypse
still has a schedule.
There are dishes in the sink.
There is laundry in the dryer.
Someone needs an answer
by Thursday.
And underneath all of it
is this small, furious child
inside me
screaming,
This was not what you promised.
I was told
if I worked hard
and tried to be kind
and kept going
there would be somewhere
soft to land.
2/3

Instead,
I have learned
how to carry groceries
through the ruins.
How to laugh
at the appropriate moments.
How to say
I’m fine
with the fluency
of a second language.
I don’t want to be brave.
I don’t want another lesson
in resilience.
I want a world
that does not require
resilience
just to get through Tuesday.
And tomorrow
I will wake up
and be an adult again
whatever the hell
that means.
3/3

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Prue Paimon @pruepaimon.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

There will come a day when someone says your name for the last time without knowing it. No trumpets. No omen. Just a sentence folded into an ordinary afternoon. And life’s echo will quietly choose the past tense. #poem

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