Paperweight Poetry

t wants me to look beautiful, to fit its size, shape, and look So it presses star shaped cookie cutters into me hoping that would make me bright But the only thing shining about me is the blood riddling me like ink on the pages of a book Naming me the unaesthetic darkness when it is society that's the absence of light.   -anna sluder

What do you think I mean when I say "get out of my house"?  It means your things are in boxes out in the rain It means don't even look at my front porch again For my heart is a house  And you opened the door without knocking But just because it's unlocked doesn't mean you can march in  It doesn't mean you can drag your soiled shoes vilely across my carpet  Spill putrid beer on my couch  Kick your feet up on the coffee table like it was yours to scratch  And I thought that this was normal, it was good to get comfortable  But then you painted the walls a color I didn't even recognize  And turned my room into your gym, my bed as your punching bag And when I started locking the doors  You would throw pebbles at my window like an old romantic  Until the pebbles turned to rocks and rocks turned the glass to pieces  And then when I let you have your own key  You took mine too until I was left out in the rain When it should of bee

She was the one who would take the wrong path Just to tail after a sunset Wrapping the sun rays about her hands like reins  To be pulled under to where the sun and horizon first met.  -anna sluder

And she ran her fingers over my mouth Each lip coming out softer than before She whispered "I don't love you for what you say"  Then cupped her small hands over mine As if holding a baby bird  "I don't love you for what you do"   Then drumming her fingers over my chest  Like a blind woman reading Brail  She said,"I love you for your heart."  -anna sluder