Paperweight Poetry

The ice on the roof sounds like thunder, as it slowly begins to melt, and I slowly begin to wonder, if that ceiling of ice that had dwelt, in chinks and pleats on top, knows we can hear it when it breaks, or if those crackles and sudden pops, is in fact what made it come awake? I think that if the shell of the life I have, slowly begun to crack, I wouldn't want the world to hear it snap into halves, or listen to everything I lack, and I even want to know, if ice breaks in the same sound as the rest of the world, or if it is only the roof of frozen snow, that when underneath sounds like an avalanche is unfurled, does the green grass underneath the unspoiled cover, crackle and fissure as its ice tenderly breaks, or do the awakening of dandelions and nests of plovers, have the same humming schisms the earth can't seem to shake? I want to press my ear down onto the numb earth, and listen to see if it says anything when it cracks, for when the ice fizzles and b

I felt something snap inside of my chest,   I slammed my hand into the glass after I undressed,   Blood across my reflection made my body unclear,   As I realized, I gave my soul away to the mirror.     -anna sluder

I slammed my hands into the soil, Scratching and clawing in toil, For the soul I once possessed, The soul that is already dead. -anna sluder

Daddy told me not to be scared For nothing bad happens when you turn off the light I hope the creatures in the dark will let me be spared But all I find is the stilling quiet of an untainted night. - anna sluder

As she kneels before the wooden cross, Her trickling tears fall in streaks, She spills out her sins and loss, Never realizing, letting go doesn't make you weak.     -anna sluder       

you fill up my soul with things not all whole but deep and kind enough to make my heart sough. -anna sluder

I swallow that blue sky   With one single bite   That sweet taste flies   As I chew upon broad daylight.     -anna sluder 

I fell in love with you like a sun That always rises but never falls That circles the universe like a home run A love like a perfect shut out game of baseball.   -anna sluder

My heart thickens in my throat when you ask for my coat you walk me down the stairs and pull out my chair my hands start to shake when we look out at the lake but you only look at me as if I'm someone rare and unseen and you don't ask me what life means you only ask me about this moment and if this time is being well spent for the polite dinner chatter suddenly doesn't seem to matter and we are falling in love like a fable over the lakeside dinner table and when we leave holding hands we run to the lake across the sand and sink our feet into the water with our legs over the dock where we totter and when the police come to scour for lovers at the lake after hours we slip down into the starlit watery foam hiding under the dock's protective dome where his lips meet mine under the cracks of the dock dripping with moonshine and our moments feel like a lifetime as the morning sun begins to climb we walk across the sand like we go around the world w

I told you effortlessly like music off my lips how much I ardently love you, But you only avoid saying it back which is worse than telling me to shush, I wouldn't have given you my soul if I would've known that with me you were through, But it wasn't until this moment that I knew how you were beating around the bush. -anna sluder

I don't want anyone to ever pity me, For pity never seems to come free, Someone always gets hurt or is down on their knees, And that is why I don't need your mercy. -anna sluder 

The yellow sunlight on the brick wall Is my haven when I'm stuck inside For whether it is spring, winter, or fall The unparalleled color never hides It always shows the red faces And the ones who hide in the cracks It illuminates where is our place And what we truly lack For as human kind we make a wall Each one of us is a brick And if we don't show that we all fall Then we won't ever hear the music Of the beauty of this life And what we come to know Instead of all our strife So we may accept and also grow And I love that  how those bricks make a wall Is a refuge to me instead of a burden For most see it as all evil and small things built up by foolish men But instead I know that this brick wall Is constructed not to keep people out But to keep people connected and all And keep out evil, sin, and doubt So when most think walls are wrong I know the light shining down on it shows how we're strong. -anna sluder

i tugged desperately at the corners of your face and didn't even ask, for i know that underneath the thing that holds you back, lies a beautiful grin, for no matter how you paint and stretch it, there is no beauty in a mask, for even when you tear it off you'll see that true beauty like that grin comes from within. -anna sluder