Paperweight Poetry

Mama, why does it rain? Spattering drops onto my freckled skin My darling, it's cuz heaven's washing away our pains  And cleansing us of our stains and  sins.  -anna sluder 

They always said that men were supposed to be strong  But once the flat line droned, a mother and a wife on her deathbed  My father didn't even act like anything was ever wrong He just laughed and cackled, as if he couldn't believe human fragility could so easily make us wake up dead.  -anna sluder 

Our lives are wrought by moments Whether they are indelibly tender  An infinite instant that is inextricably Godsent Or the plaguing ones with enough torture to render  Our ache and pangs to all consuming misery  But needless of the type, these moments define Our lives, marking how you are you and I am me And teaching us where to search for this identity to find  O you inextirpable anomalies of time In between the reality and the illusion Teach me to live like you do in your fleeting lifetime In raw spontaneity and wonder again and again  For our lives are wreathed with you and your moments  But our lives are just as impermanent as you  But so that I know what my life truly meant Show me how to live unboundedly through   For my life is made of chromatic moments  But I am also one too.  -anna sluder 

i never need to explain myself to you or why i don't believe in the things you say for me to hear your lies aren't worth my time, only words untrue  for I am not a person who sells their soul to Fear.  -anna sluder 

Whenever he beat her, like he often did again and again   The woman, was quiet and wouldn't give her words up  For every time he uselessly asked to be forgiven   She knew, that for an answer, her silence was loud enough.   -anna sluder 

She got drunk on the dew of the morning As he got drunk on the stars of the night  But they did this daily, not a one night fling Their drunkenness guided by the separate lights  Their names were dawn and dusk  And they were the forgotten souls of time They weren't day or night, they're part of time's husk  An undefined moment, a blank name before the prime No wonder they drink, dawn sucking our dew dry And dusk guzzling away our carbonated stars  They are unappreciated without a why  Just a pre-show before where the big shots are  But dawn and dusk cannot change  Dawn isn't day and dusk isn't night So they get intoxicated in exchange Instead of remembering that they are stronger than dark and light For it is extraordinary for light to penetrate the dark Under the name that we call the  dawn And the dark to shroud daylight's heavy spark And that dusk can make the sunlight withdrawn Instead of morning s...

I wonder if, in the way that we feel the rain The world feels me too, like a steadfast dripping of I  My volatile existence just dousing the earth with an invisible stain Yet, as trivial as I am, without it, the world would go dry.   -anna sluder