Chris Skoyles - Notebooks.

If everybody jumped off a bridge today
Would you?

Would you stand by 
On the brim
And leap in on a whim
Because everybody did 
Just to fit in?

If everybody jumped off a bridge today
Would I?

I was asked this myself,
More than once as it happens,
As a child by
Parents who were only trying to help,
To put me on the right path,
Stay out of the trappings of following the masses,
Think for myself
BELIEVE in myself,
Have a little God damn faith in myself.

If everybody jumped 
Way high off a bridge today,
Would you?

Would I?

No Ma’am, not me
No Sir, I will stand by
And watch the others 
Leap if I must
But I promise your first born 
Will not become airborne.
No leaping off bridges

Or buildings for that matter.

I will form
M own path
I will pick
My own destiny
I will take
My own leap
This one of faith
In myself and something else
I will grow
And become my own man.

So I did.
So, well done Mum
And good job, Dad,
Message receieved, 
But perhaps misunderstood.

I did asked you asked
And followed no masses
Got far too busy
Going out kicking asses
To become my own man
ANd follow my own path.

So, 
Why young boys
Would put on shorts
And play sports
I would take walks
In the woods with my Grandfather,
Over the hills and down through the trees,
We would’ve gone further if it weren’t for his knees.

And when I got home
I would write
I would draw
I would create.

Sometimes I wrote stories
Sometimes I drew dreams
But always, always
I would create
Lands, lives and tales
Where I would stay
Enraptured by my brain
From childhood onwards,
Into my teens
And through that bitter bit in between
When my voice broke
And my heart broke
And I learned
For the first time (though certainly not the last)
What it felt like to
Break.

And throughout it all
I 
did
not
JUMP.

No Sir, no ma’am
No leaping off bridges
For me today,
Only leaping with gusto towards 
MY own way.

And whilst everybody else was busy
Jumping off bridges
Because everybody else was
And they wanted to tag along,
I got my eyebrow pierced and grew my hair long,
Picked up a pen
Wrote some words
Kissed a girl and then
Did it again.

Look, Sir! Look, Ma’am!
No jumping off bridges for me!

Oh, they looked alright.
Glaring, staring, puzzled and bewildered.

But….

Why not?

Everybody else 
Is jumping off bridges now,
Why
aren’t
YOU?

Because, Sir,
Because, Ma’am,
You made it sound 
Like a really really bad plan.

Oh, but that was then and this is now,
Go jump off a bridge!

Leap off on a whim,
And fit in!

Get a job, get a loan,
Get a car and insurance,
Get a house and a home
That you’ll work
For fifty years of your life to pay off,
Taking two weeks
To take off
Somewhere dull,
Like the middle of Spain or,
I don’t know, Rhyl.

Get drunk in the sun
And forget about the job,
The bills,
The car and insurance,
ANd working fifty weeks a year
For fifty years of your life
To pay of it all.

Leap off the damn bridge

And into that!

Get a house, get a mortgage
Have kids, find a wife
Get
a
LIFE!

Message ill-received
And misunderstood.

That doesn’t sound like a whole bunch of fun
Not much of a life if you ask me.
Sounds more like a persistent existence,
Something to do between birth 
And a rather unflattering descent to the dirt.

But hey,
Mother knows best
And Dad’s rule is law,
So I left
And I leapt,
And I nearly bloody drowned.

Got a house
Got a job
Found a wife
Who I even sort of liked
Went Rhyl,
It was dull
Went to Spain,
It was plain,
It was all very plain
And it sucked
So I stopped
Swam to the safety
Of something much better.

Sorry Ma’am
Sorry Sir,
No more leaping off bridges
Just because everybody else is
And I should go along.

Instead,
I will get a tattoo,
Grow my hair long again
Pick up a pen
Write some words and kiss a girl
And I will write
And I will draw
And I will create
My own life
And my own path
Take a leap
Not off a bridge
But into faith
In myself
And something else.

And when next asked
What I would do
When everybody is jumping off bridges
I know what I would do.

How about you?

If the night should should fade to black tonight

Into an abyss forever devoid of light,

If we never face another morning

It would not be cause for mourning.

The world could end tomorrow,

And I would be alright.

I could die tonight, completely fine,

Knowing that the last of my time

Was spent in a certain serenity,

And the freedom from insanity

That your friendship granted me.

If the world should die before daybreak

I’d be content to sleep and never wake,

My world would end tonight in bliss,

The same that came from your first kiss

That I now find in our promise

Of love and trust and friendship.

From you I learned that there is a cure,

That my mind can one day be as pure

As the beauty I see within your soul,

Still strong as ever despite the toll

My madness took upon our world.

From you I learned of stepping stones,

One day at a time til I find home.

From you I learned to put myself first,

Without me how I can begin to be

How can I shield you from your hurt?

But if the world should end,

Please accept these words as my amends,

My attempt to put soothe your soul

After my madness took it’s toll.

And if the night should die tonight,

I’ll meet you beneath the pale moonlight,

Of our forest, or our Loch,

This is promise, no matter what.

And if the world should fade away,

Please know that everything was OK,

Just like I always said it would be,

Eventually, in the end.

This Moon,
She masks herself in clouds
Half grey and full of gloom,
Which sail softly through the darkness
As though heading for their doom.

This Moon,
She appears half hidden from the Earth,
As though the night took a piercing bite
From some crucial  part of her.

This Moon,
She trembles in the winter air,
Her tears in torrents,
Like tormented bullets,
That kill me when I face her.

Yet I can not take my eyes off her.

For This Moon,
She has a beauty beneath
Her sombre slumber,
And an air of wonder rolling under
Eyes that cry defeat.

There is something about her face,
As though somehow saddened
By the maddened abandon
Of jealous angels.

She seems ready to die,
In the still of the night,
As though at the loss of angels,
She lost her fight,
And only longs for peace.

And what I wouldn’t give,
To give her that peace so she could live,
Or at least die right beside her,
So that my final thought is of how beautiful she is.

Yet I have already died,
Killed by the tears she cried
Tonight.
 

A beautiful illustration of my poem ‘About A Boy’ by my best friend Stacy, a.k.a Moonlyte Shadow.

Moonlyte is currently working on a series of illustrations based on my poems, creating them in the virtual world Second Life.

You can view these, plus more of her work at http://moonlyte-shadow.deviantart.com/ 

Clock chimes,
Half a dozen strokes past nine,
Crawled into bed,
But I am doing completely fine,
I swear,
Still half dead yet nearly cured,
Even still, I’m fine.

It’s just the chemicals.
Poison spills from my veins,
The antidote snaps inside my brain,
Blood scratches against my skin,
Bones grind from deep within
My chest, I confess, I can’t draw breath.

Yet I am doing completely fine,
I swear that I am nearly cured.
It’s just the chemicals,
They make me ill, 
Even still, I’m fine.

And I can not ask for sympathy,
It’s me who had it in for me,
My weakness my greatest enemy
My sickness my salvation,
My treasured cure my true disease.

Yet I believe that I am fine,
That I will get better, I promise, this time.
It’s just chemicals that pushed the jeckyll
From my Mr. Hyde.
Doesn’t mean that I can’t hide
Under the covers at  dozen strokes past nine,
After all, I’m completely fine,
It’ just the chemicals I swear.
 

(A sequel to 3am Star)

A One AM Star,

Brighten than them all,

Reminds me of words I whispered before.
 

A single star,

Brighter than the rest

Reminds me that whatever we have left

Is precious and gracious and worth fighting for

A single star,

Brighter than the rest,

Makes me long to feel my lips pressed

Against hers at least once more
 

A single star

More beautiful than them all

Is her, my guiding light, my angel

Now and forever more.

(via littlepoetonspring)

goodylove asked: you are a great writer i like reading your post have a blessed day

Thank you, really appreciate that. Will try to post a bit more often. 
Without wanting to come across as spammy, I recently set up a Facebook page to keep people updated on my writing projects. A lot of the stuff is from this Tumblr but some isn’t. If you’d ever like to come and say hi sometime, feel free to do so (https://www.facebook.com/chrisjskoyles) otherwise, thank you so much for taking the time to write to me today. Really appreciate it and it very much made my day.

God Bless,

Chris

xx 

I sat in the darkness and let a lit cigarette lie stiff between my lips as I admired the wounds scarred deep within my naked skin. A timid breeze teased a hot midnight air which soothed the burning spots where only moments ago She’d scratched and torn at my flesh.

The air felt good. The inflamed pain even more so.

The battle between us was over; sealed with a kiss amidst the sweat, the heat, the violent bliss. Yet Her Darkness was set to rise once more and drag us into war.

Smoke trembled from my mouth as I closed my eyes, bowed my head and prayed to God. 

God answered my prayer, spoke to me, gently prized my chin from my chest and pressed my neck against my shoulders til my head pointed towards the air. Here I could look in His eyes and He in mine and I could see and I could feel my request granted.

Cigarette extinguished, smoke faded, the burning wounds She had carved into my skin soothed by the hot midnight air.

I closed the door behind me and the floorboards cracked and shrieked beneath my feet as I crept through the house and up the stairs.

There, She slept. Beautiful and naked except for a single small sheet so thin it revealed every graceful curve, every haunting scar, every tender movement of Her body.

She lay stiff.

And then She twitched.

Her Darkness had arrived, and once more I would try to protect Her.

She had once believed She could never be saved, yet that would not stop me from trying. 

Minutes descended into hours as I lay awake beside Her, wrestling Her from each nightmare and holding Her until She fell asleep again and fell back into another.

She had once believed She could never be saved, yet here I was, still trying.

Available FREE on Amazon Kindle all this weekend: A Dipsomaniac’s Guide to Self-Destruction (A Collection of Drunken Lullabies), my first poetry collection. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dipsomaniacs-Destruction-collection-lullabies-ebook/dp/B0082ZE1YQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339263288&sr=8-1