Paperweight Poetry

poem: tell me everything that hurts. -anna sluder

The hotel pool smells the same the hotel room with the sheets I had before and the hotel rules that never change and I can bear it no longer i’d rather break break break be dissipated into the chlorinated fools such as I. -anna sluder

fear of failure looks like a blank page haunted by echoes of words erased and shadows of pencil lead that once carried thoughts fear of failure looks like a back space that won’t move fast enough to delete the pain of knowing that I wasn’t good enough fear of failure looks like flames tilted to paper whoever said you couldn’t burn an idea? and sounds like a thought ripping who even invented paper? or pencils? or the brain? God, I hate everything but even then I’m scared I’m not hating it right fear of failure is not being able to do anything it’s Hamlet swaying with a knife in his hands playing eeny-meeny-miney-mo to decide whether to kill fear of failure is dancing with indecision even when you don't know how to move fear of failure, I despise you Oh wait, no I'm sorry, Did I do it wrong? Am I supposed to love you? -anna sluder

Mama lied. The devil doesn’t come with a pitchfork and fire. He comes with a smile. -anna sluder

The children grow and grow  and take on the countenance and face of another picking bits and pieces of others and taping them to himself and the women hear another speaking of art  so they venture in circles rambling of Manet claiming something is beautiful only by the validation of another and then they care about the poets because someone read a poem from their mind and they all inscribe a few phrases on the backs of their hands  never knowing what the poet actually meant growing and cutting their hair over and over like weeds turned to flowers than back again the children grow and grow  growing drunk on imitation  and they shake my hand at graduation and say that I’m all grown with the syntax of a declaration, but the tone of a question and I look at the tops of my shoes  waiting for the wind to press the gown out of the way so I can read and then say with valiant impersonation, Yes.  -anna sluder

Perhaps there are words for you and words for me just as certain as the sun knows where to shine and where not to  And in the nakedness of the human machine a contradiction of life and vulnerability we make our place by past not fate the noise of souls howling words around a fire  so that those words clump like clay in poems and into meaning Vulnerable shaves down to bones of what we are past shaves down to bones of what they were And as much as we claim a singularity as a planet with things that cry and feel and breathe and speak  unprecedented among the others  we are still a planet, still connected to past like a mother with an umbilical cord of stars we cannot remember  For the knowledge of past is present therefore past is still present  as long as we know of what it was, it still is  Books can be burned, but the feeling of words cannot  so perhaps there were groves of meanings meant for you and another ga...

I wonder if you can buy happiness on the black market it fits all the qualities, rare, hard to get, sometimes fraudulent I think seven billion people on the rise would pay an arm and a leg for it well probably more than that because an arm costs $385 and a leg costs similar on the black market And I know people who would pay a million just for a sip of feeling alive of joy sliding down your throat into your stomach like warm wine I wonder how'd they steal it and who even has it to steal from perhaps they extract the songs from the vocal cords of lovers collect them in jars in the back of a van what a place to keep happiness trapped perhaps they steal them from the bellies of children while they sleep they always were so innocent but then maybe the sellers would just want to keep it to themselves in a sweeping gesture of desperation they'd drink every jar I think, that in one way or another, we all just want to be happy. -anna sluder