Paperweight Poetry

Sometimes I think it's the places in between Where there are ghosts we cannot name  Tears we cannot understand That flow like the river Thames And the knowledge that you can build bridges over gaps And that wildflowers grow in the valley Is the only thing that gives me hope That life is more than a foolish idea to scrap  And then again sometimes it's the places in between Where the dreams have ended and begun  And it's the place where I will always love you  In between you and the sun.  -anna sluder

She was poetry to him  As if she didn't even have any bones But was liquid air  The way the wind brushes back your hair And you swear it is soft, soft fingers  Tucking it back behind your ears Instead it is wildly invisible Too gentle for our eyes to see She was the easy spill of  "i love you"s over once trembling lips silk curtains dancing before the open window laughing in the breeze it was the simplicity in the way she moved As if life itself would buy a ticket to her own performance of it because she could make an apron look like a ball gown And bare feet freckled in mud like her glass slippers She was beautiful in every practice And she was beautiful in every design Like the sun and moon and stars circled about her And every touch was music  Her eyes, what a melody Even her organs seemed to sing Her heart pulsing against her skin to a lovely little beat She was a flood of every good thing Simply wrapped up in...

I don't know why I always put my heart in my pocket It's the easiest place to get grabbed  For it is as tempting as a thick wallet fanning out cash As I walk alone in a city But maybe that's why it sticks out It's too big to not be loved And being snatched by the street thugs  Feels better than never being wanted at all.  -anna sluder

I hope you know that I will always love you  You are my sun and my moon And the light to all that bears light And I will be fearless in loving you Fearless in giving you my heart Because it is the only thing that with I can part If it goes to you So cheers to the man that gets my heart For you get my soul and all my lights too.  -anna sluder

The night is old  but we are young So we tap our knuckles on its door Trying to draw it out of its shell To coax the wise old turtle out  To whisper to us the secrets of life To point out the raw truth emboldened  across each wrinkle of his face And life's toil manifested in the curling and withering  of his fingers and nails This is how it is supposed to be But instead we serve drinks to the drunk on his back As skanks dance upon his shell And the fools get laid under his body  Until the night is finally through Howling: "the night is young and we are young" As the turtle withdraws his head back into his shell Thinking: if only they knew. -anna sluder

Charmless boys get nowhere They say Flirtless girls get nowhere They say Charming boys get nowhere They say Flirting girls get nowhere  They say Than what is there left to be A loose confederation of hopes and dreams? A pink paper doll tearing at the seams? No, you want some mass of muscles and skin Flopping about unopinionated and numb  You don't like us fish out of water Questioning your frilly expectations Because we are too slippery to grasp Bouncing about not easy to catch You think we just want to rebel, but we just want to breathe Not in the water, not in the air because nothing is ever clean  So give me your one way mirror rules and rules  And I will saturate them in your own filth, unreadably wet And in that moment with the disintegration of words I will not be charmless or charming, flirtless or flirting  I will be a girl or I will be a boy Finally breathing in the space between the funeral of rules. ...

These people they mark their skin  With permanent ink in an impermanent life Perhaps so their willful scars will outnumber the unwillful ones And they will feel somehow stationary, unbudging In a much so budging world  Where we are as fleeting as pinstripes in the thirties As ephemeral as the loose change given to the unwanted man  So yes, screw it, we will always be cursory  But let's mark our cheeks with freckles from kisses from the sun  Let's tattoo our passports with foreign cities  And scar our hearts with neophytic loves  Because no one wants to see the word love carved into your skin They want to see it carved into your heart.  -anna sluder