Paperweight Poetry

We're outgrowing the skin in which we hide Outgrowing the words with which we lie Outgrowing the blue sky above our heads For this world is what we want to shed.  -anna sluder

I wonder if we'll start over  Or just settle in like dust  You me and the ruins  Slowly beginning to rust.  -anna sluder

I flicked away the clouds  And snapped for the trees to part Fluttering to your balcony  On the corner of Amelia and Earhart  So every day you'd leave a little piece of bread  And just stare at me with a smile Then you'd do your crosswords in pen  As I people-watched for awhile Then one day you put down your crosswords  And picked up a pencil instead You would intricately sketch my wings on you  Feathers sprouting from the place below your head  Every day your eyes were a little more bloodshot  Staring unwaveringly from my wings  Until one day I came home to you To see that you had let your blood sing Over the balcony and on the ground your arms spread out like wings  Your body arched like a bird's, you looked so broken yet so free So I mourn at all that I would've given  If I had known you had just wanted to be me.  -anna sluder

Take care of the mass of muscles and vessels That squat in your chest, ticking to keep you alive Rather than ticking like a time bomb until you're dead Take heed to the swarms of atoms and molecules Bumping into each other like tides of bees Bubbling in your lungs so that you can breathe Take caution to the one-way mirror of blue For just because it is bright today Doesn't mean tomorrow it will be too So if you do not care for the earth in which you choke All you will hear is your neighbors winces and moans Until there is nothing is left to make nests of our bones. -anna sluder

He  catches the tears from her eyes To drown his own Etherizes get sobs and cries So they can hear his moans But the thing about the girl from the city Is even though surrounded by thousands there was no one to ask for pity And so that's why the boy from the country with few people known Was the only person who wasn't utterly alone  -anna sluder