Paperweight Poetry

I met you in the middle of a stream, Where I was thrashing and struggling, For I was simply and surely drowning, I didn't understand why you dove in, Maybe you just like the water too, I know that is why I had leapt in, A muscled hand streaking towards me, I didn't know what you were doing, As I convulsed in the tossing drifts of water, But the moment I saw your eyes, The same color as the grass I wanted to stand on, Instead of the blue I was imprisoned in, I quit, Fighting, Resisting, And wrangling, Flailing, And trying, I didn't give up, As I melted tenderly into the blue, I simply gave in, Into your eyes, that haven of green, And when I sunk down so far, That the water turned from blue to green, The color of your eyes, I realized something, That you were trying to save me, But you couldn't, And it doesn't matter, That you didn't save my body in whole, For in a dreamlike moment, Of only looking int...

When I press my nose to the glass, With rings of swollen breath melting, Across the window and vision's crevasse, I wonder if there's something that I am missing, For my mind tries to fill the picture, Of what's behind the glass as it fades, So what if through the gauzy mist of blur, My mind shows me what is normal to be displayed? And I am surely losing the magic of this life, For what if I missed baby rabbits being born, Or a spontaneous lover kissing his wife? And then those moments I do mourn, So I will not obscure the glass with my breaths, I will not blot out the world before my eyes, For if I do it now I may do it for every moment till my death, As I find, that what my mind does best is tell me lies. -anna sluder

You drained that deep oaken liquid straight down your throat,   You acted like you were burning from the inside out as you let out a wail,   Until finally the couch sunk beneath you but your soul seemed afloat,   As you laughed at me when I asked if you liked your ginger ale.     -anna sluder 

There is a time to be eloquent and speak with grace,   and times to ramble and rant in laughing drawls,   for words always seem to know their place,   whether it is to be spoken or for there to be no words at all.     -anna sluder 

  * i love the way it feels when someone makes you laugh, right after you have poured out all your sorrows into tears, for in one small giggle it can always seem to snap in half, the pain and grief you have stacked up over too many years.   *   -anna sluder 

His hands hold the imprints of every child he has lifted,   And every treasured soul he has carried back home,   Their precious names written on his palms instead,   Of the ugly sins they did and he has always known.     -anna sluder 

The sun murmured tenderly to the dawn,   Telling it to wake up, for it is a new day,   So the sun rays stretched its arms out to yawn,   And then rose up from its knees after it had prayed.   -anna sluder

If one day I woke up blind,   And the last thing that I'd want my eyes to trace,   Wouldn't even be a sunset with pinks intertwined,   It would be the creases and mementos of your sweet face.     -anna sluder 

My hands are cold, my mouth is dry, they say 29,000 feet is a lot to climb. my fingers groan over each push and my feet on every ledge are murderers of white butterflies. if this bump is dripping in white things with wings, all letting go and releasing, then this place is even more for me. when I breathe the oxygen that is helping me, the pain is of rusting away something familiar as though it is only killing me. am I supposed to feel on this white-butterflied hill, that the farther I climb, the farther I fall, and the more air I breathe to stay alive, the more I die? As I cross over the line of the horizon, and chainsaw the cuffs of boundaries, I wonder how I toiled for this moment, but never thought it through. I hope that the poor sad thing will move, at least float out of its coffin, and soar with the arctic butterflies. As I itch my way to the galaxy of it all, the farthest pinpoint up, and think not so much that I chose up, than I did away. I am alright...

I listen to the rain As it whispers through a wall It cracks and bullies the plaster Slowly and tenderly it pokes through Forming little holes To let the water spill into A flood for my pent up soul I know it is the only way To become more alive I saw it once in a stain glass church Where people dipped into the water Like flowers with morning dew To call out to God past the earth And die in their sins for a rebirth So I listen to the rain As it murmurs through a door Filtrating its way through the locks And flowing through the peephole But the rain can only make it so far It can only reach my ankles I have to break down the wall Open the door To let all the whispers in All the murmurs resound Or I am just a man With his ear pressed to the wall And I am just a man With his hand on the door knob I listen to the rain only For the very last time As I make one adequate hole in the wall And open the door just a crack So I can taste the rain also And smell it ...

I want to be as free as the snowflakes that cry down unto the earth,   They choose wherever they get to land,   For I feel like my life would hold much more worth,   If I for once got to ignore the world's demands.     -anna sluder 

They told us to wrap up warm when we meet the cold sky,   For the flame that makes us fly can only make so much heat,   And when we soar and it's sure to be frigid for we are up high,   I know it is your pure warmth that melts the sky's cold heartbeat.   -anna sluder         

I wandered deep into the bottom of the sea,   For there is no judgment, not a single entrance fee,   So while society smothers and chokes me down,   The bottom of the sea is the one place I don't drown.     -anna sluder 

Often I wonder, could honor and bravery ever be the same? but there is no way to have honor unless you are brave, and there is nothing honorable in being brave only for fame, for being dauntless only for acclaim, won't have bravery written on their graves.   -anna sluder 

They zoomed in on my heart and asked me what my pain was like, Excruciating and crawling pain all over my chest was what I told, They had never seen it before and to terminate it used medicines to strike, As I found out that what was on my heart was a dark harboring mold. -anna sluder