Paperweight Poetry

Lumps rise like Everests in my throat  Drying and tightening like a cracking icy coat And I have to take a bite off of this fear  Chew it like tobacco, black juice dripping out like tears For fear is an acquired taste  Grinding my teeth to choke it down like its a race But it is a race, to keep from others from seeing that instead of strong and declared I truly am scared Therefore I squeeze down my pharynx whatever fate says to chew  And I have to smile and say that it tastes good too  Because nobody wants to hear That you really need the Heimlich from fear  For its all a show, a mask to all the strife So I guess you can say I am a sword swallower in this circus called life.  -anna sluder

You're thigh bone is stronger than concrete You are seventy percent water Your cells slightly salty Your liver can regenerate Your heart if stopped can start again  You'll never run out of skin Your adrenaline can make you lift a truck Your ears will never forget a voice You are made of millions of cells Made of billions of atoms So baby don't tell me you aren't invincible When you are made of mountains and canyons Don't tell me you can't live forever When you are made of the waves of the ocean.  -anna sluder

I'm drinking Drinking in this moment  Drinking you in  For right now I feel as though I am staring straight into your soul And I couldn't find it lovelier.  -anna sluder

When were you going to tell me That I am becoming your carbon dioxide When simply in my presence, at the look at my face Your skin thins of color, until eventually you turn as blue as mold on bread As blue as waters an infant drowns in  And you stumble backwards choking on my existence  Suffocating on her lack of existence  When were you ever going to tell me  That I am your carbon dioxide The putrid taste you wring from your tongue  With a swish of water, with a gulp of her The forgotten halos of cold breaths wispy and wet  Drying and floating away into the icy sky  When were you ever going to choose a damn time to tell me  That I will always be your carbon dioxide  The disposable you will always use like razor blades  That are there for the moment to saw the growing filth off  And then soon in the trashcan as shunned as your dirt But baby I can cut too So when were you going to tell me you fo...

Roses are dead Violets are shrews  After all that you said I hope you are too.  -anna sluder

Dear Lost Boys, Is Wendy as nice as they say she is? Is Michael that little and John really a wiz?  Maybe I could meet Tinkerbell Because I know she has some different stories to tell  I'd like to know if we really get to fight Captain Hook And if he is really that bad of a crook Dear Lost Boys,  Are their real mermaids on the rocks  Did the alligator really swallow that clock?  With just a little belief in fairies and trust I heard we can fly with pixie dust  Do you think Peter Pan would let me fly high and low As we look for his shadow? Dear Lost Boys, I don't mean to intrude But mommy said I might be coming there very very soon So where is this Neverland that you speak of?  Where you never hurt, you never age,  just love?  I heard we always get to play  And we aren't in pain for another day? Dear Lost Boys, Is Peter Pan coming soon?  Because the doctors say I might not make it past...

Take a sip of my warm indifference As it stains the dog-eared pages of your hopes  Discolors your coffee table with wet rings like crop circles Signifying the alienness of us, of that once love  I hope you bury it in sugar, the suffocation of sweetners Strangle it with tea bag strings and syrup  And I laugh hysterically as you toss salt in, thinking its sugar I hope you gag on the lukewarmness of my love  The bitterness of letting the tea bag steep for a little too long So that you may suffer never knowing if I loved you a little more than I hate you or hated you a little more than I loved you Because indifference is the in between, but mine is tender Sweetly torturing you over if I loved you more or less Like love and hate, stalemates at the blade Pushing and pushing a little here and a little there For a little more sugar, and a little less sugar  Is the indifferent tea that we taste.  -anna sluder