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652 · Jan 2020
Nightlights
Anna Josephine Jan 2020
It's 4am but you're not sleeping.
Your friends went out, but you stayed in.. Again.
The lights are off, but it feels much darker.
Your mind is screaming you're a coward.
548 · Feb 2021
Birth of a poet
Anna Josephine Feb 2021
Sometimes, mothers give birth to their past in the shape of a child. A child born to another's world is born a poet.
453 · Sep 2019
Remember me
Anna Josephine Sep 2019
Remember me in the summer breeze when the wind blows calm and low.
When the summer fields bloom with colour wheels and the sweet Magnolia's show.
 Remember me in the autumn leaves when Noon's an orange glow.
When the trees are full and the moon is bright and squirrels dance in the forests bows.
  Remember me in the winter freeze when the snow falls slow and kind.
When the children pray and sleigh bells play to bring on  Christmas time .
  Remember me in the spring  filled trees when daffodils meet the eye.
When rabbits jump and lambs wobble on bent knees and crooked thighs .
 But remember me when we finally meet and the ocean drifts on by
when the curtains close the world unfolds and all that's left is you and I
Another very old poem I wrote when I was about 15.
281 · Apr 2021
Please be OK
Anna Josephine Apr 2021
I am suspended, trapped in this emotional black void. I cannot cheer myself up when I know you are so sad. I want to call you and fill your mouth with kisses and remind you that your track record for surviving bad days is 100%. I want to fill you up with happiness like fuel at a gas station so that you can continue this unmapped journey. I just really, really want you to be happy.
254 · Sep 2019
Romeo and Juliet
Anna Josephine Sep 2019
The tragic misfortunes of the victims of hate
Could not control their haunted fate.
Romeo and Juliet bound in chains of doom
sprung from a fountain of a toxic fued.
Fiery tybalt and his sword of gold revived a battle that remains to be told.
Romeo in anger and full of love killed the boy and a riot set off .
Now the hate grew ever more and more and soon enough the families where at war !
Which to end a tale in death and tears for these ancient families it was never clear.
That there love made love turn into hate.
Now four lay dead in a tomb,
from the battles of the caplets and the montagues !
And never was there a story of more woe than this of juliet and her romeo.
Just found this poem that I wrote when I was 13. It's not perfect but I had completely forgotten about it and re reading it was like being smacked in the face with nostalgia.
253 · Dec 2019
My last poem
Anna Josephine Dec 2019
Let's go back to where this almost ended.
My last poem forever pending.
You held me close and stopped me comprehending, the life in hell I'd one day be spending.
248 · Feb 2021
The Mandrake Root
Anna Josephine Feb 2021
You planted fear in the pit of my stomach and nurtured the seed,
now my varicose veins are green.
Watch, as I uproot this hideous ****,
that you so roughly dug inside of me.
227 · Feb 2021
Croí na hÉireann
Anna Josephine Feb 2021
I, a poetess like many blame my people,
for the rage and ruin my life has crumbled to form.
Twisting villains and heroes to worship, destroy and blame.
Like Saint brigids cloak I cover vast lands of truths untold,
hidden in the modern ogham I tell my tales.
I run gasping to fill my lungs with worldly senses,
denying my roots to caress the clouds. The ground I stand on never changing me but guiding me slowly,
towards words that shape me,
I weep for Croí na hÉireann.
218 · Apr 2021
Volcano
Anna Josephine Apr 2021
I feel everything bubble up through my soul like carbon dioxide, filling up all the empty holes to the outside, and then I bleed, I bleed dramatically, I bleed emotionally, seeping emotions pour out of me. I am not normal I am a little more porous.
217 · May 2021
Spider webs
Anna Josephine May 2021
There is a spider in the kitchen we're both just stood staring, it and I in a trance of who runs first? Are you dangerous or am I? I try to catch it under a glass but it will not move, are you dangerous or am I? I step back it needs time to recover, we both do. There is a spider in the kitchen are you dangerous or am I?
Sometimes people are like spiders, we think they are harmless, we doubt ourselves saying things like it is probably more afraid of you because you are so big and strange, we trust people like spiders too except sometimes we get it wrong. We run from the harmless and get bitten by tarantulas.
213 · Oct 2019
Fear
Anna Josephine Oct 2019
I am afraid of the scariest of things.
I am afraid of the past and what the future might bring.

I am afraid of your eyes they all have a story.
Some of pain some of love
And some just ignore me.

I am afraid of judgement the things that you see.
I am most afraid of what my friends think of me.

I am afraid of the dark, my mind and of being alone.
I don't like to remember things that happened at home.

I am afraid of all this and of so much more.
But the one thing I know is I'm brave to the core.
205 · Jun 2021
Rise and repeat
Anna Josephine Jun 2021
I hate you like the hoarse, dry throated cockeral hates the rise of morning sun. A hatred that repeats itself over and over with closed eyelids. It is a strange emotion to hate with hope, as all creatures do that something miraculous will emerge from the same, tired nothingness. A foundation built on what if's and maybe's. when in reality everything always repeats, always.
171 · May 2021
The changing of the weather
Anna Josephine May 2021
When I'm sad it rains,
its been raining a lot lately.
And just like that sentence I've been skirting around the edges trying to avoid direct contact with anything.
I feel like I am edgeless and not in a 'you are limitless' kind of way.
More like I have no idea who I am anymore and it scares the hell out of me!
I don't feel sad in the same way I used to when I could attach a tag to each emotion and say I know you.
I feel shattered and used like every bone in my body has come from a charity shop and I'm trying to figure out how everything works and what pieces are missing from the box.
I am drowning in my own rain and every breath I try to take to remind myself you have to survive,
fills my lungs a little more until I have to scream *******!
Bring it on,
because I refuse to die in this weather, just like the past I cannot change it but my coat has a hood and like everything,
rain is never permanent.
165 · May 2021
Digestion
Anna Josephine May 2021
It is half-past one in the afternoon, I have bobbed on the sea of empty deepness like a buoyancy aid with no purpose but to bounce.
I bump into emotion after emotion like a cascade, a waterfall or a tornado just trying to score high on entropy.
I am high on emptiness yet I am full, full of all the words and memories that have been shoved inside of me like a stuffed turkey.
I cannot draw a line between one thought to the next like a connect the dots but the picture does not make sense.
I feel empty and full as if I've eaten a huge meal yet I've eaten nothing at all.
I still have hours more to digest.
159 · Apr 2021
Sickness
Anna Josephine Apr 2021
My stomach gurgles day and night, it is not hungry but afraid. My fears have fallen from my mind into the pit of my stomach and I can hear them screaming to get out.
152 · Apr 2021
Reading glasses
Anna Josephine Apr 2021
Some days poetry isn't enough, I've read enough about love, now I need to feel it.
140 · Aug 2019
The Morning After
Anna Josephine Aug 2019
Scrambled words on toast.
gulping down the hot coffee roast.
Place mats or beer mats face down on the table.
Sweaty palms trying to keep stable.
Ear drums and kettle screams.
Topsy turvy kitchen dreams.
135 · May 2021
Cry
Anna Josephine May 2021
Cry
I can't cry properly anymore,
Before I could cry for hours and when the hours were up my problems always seemed a little more solved. Now I cry in little bursts,
enough to be sore and dehydrated but not enough to make anything make sense or resolved.
I try to cry but I feel prevented I feel numb I feel empty,
I need to be sad so that I can be happy. I am like a traffic light changing from happy to Amber to sad.
I change dramatically and periodically like that.
Right now I am stuck on Amber,
I am stalled.
133 · Apr 2020
A rainy evening
Anna Josephine Apr 2020
Grey gloomy and beautiful
The sound of rain and tin.
Smokey scent and tree tops
The little birds still sing.
Cool crisp and twilight
Rain drops steady drum.
My mind so ever peaceful
I won't wish the rain to stop.
118 · Jan 2021
Scare me I dare you..
Anna Josephine Jan 2021
After all you've been through why do you still look for love and men? Because you have no idea how powerful it is to enjoy something you've been taught to fear.
118 · Jul 2020
Dancing in the rain
Anna Josephine Jul 2020
The rain is a part of our skin.
Hands gently clasped, the music begins.
The wet dusky car park now feels like a dream.
Dissolving in puddles the bright moon beams.
Droplets dance in your hair like ballet.  
We twirl and we laugh embracing the rain.
Raindrops caress the curves of your face.
Our stare then our lips.. slowly fall into place.
115 · Mar 2021
A room
Anna Josephine Mar 2021
There is a room in every child's mind, we call it home,those coloured walls bright, bash, comically fashionable, Ageing but never old. We cling to them and they mould us. Home! where we seek when we wander. A room is home for a child.
113 · Mar 2021
Coal
Anna Josephine Mar 2021
There is a fire burning,
in the fireplace.
It is black with onyx coal.
The fire is small and smokey,
chuck-full with black dark coal.
The fire takes some time to heat,
the flames begin so small,
the fire roars and heats my feet,
  light illuminates my soul.
The fire dies down early,
in the fireplace.
It is black with ash from coal.
The fire is cold and smokey,
Chuck-full with black dark coal.
The fire refuses to provide some heat,
no flame however small,
the fire quietly chills my feet,
dark consumes my soul.
108 · Oct 2020
meaning?
Anna Josephine Oct 2020
What beautiful minds you both have,
filled with love and science.
Spilling, but you don't laugh?!
I want to listen to you read.
Read, read our ancient poetry,
I see you booted and laced in tweed.
Now, Let me read one more page of your mystery thesis
Then off to bed,
So I can rip it to pieces.
106 · Jun 2020
Love and loneliness
Anna Josephine Jun 2020
Love is what we feel when we experience the beauty of our world.
Being in love is experiencing its beauty together.
Loneliness is wishing for both yet feeling neither.
98 · Mar 2021
Morning routine
Anna Josephine Mar 2021
I wake up, instantly groan at my existence, look at all the messages I haven't received and re-read the ones I've sent. I look at poetry, the sad kind that makes me feel just a little understood, I think of 10 impossible, unlikely and outrageous things that could happen in the next few hours. I sigh and wish I could go back to sleep, I think of all the life I want to be living but am not, I think of how sad I am not fulfilling anything, yet pressured into always working for something menial. I roll my eyes and think of death, before stretching my arms and remembering, ahh its time for breakfast.
97 · Jul 2020
Tunnel Vision
Anna Josephine Jul 2020
I'm running down the tunnel tunneling towards a black abyss.
Dark, lonesome vault-like the curves are all amiss.
Damp and moist filled cavern so foul and ever queer.
Drip, drop splashes echo filling up my ears.
Green eery glow now pooling in the pool.
Shoes soaked and clingy a stench so foul and cruel.
Metal clangs as rust scraps start scraping at my hands.
Ladder rungs are snapping beneath my footed stance.
Reaching for a metal hatch my fingers stretched up high.
Pushing on the push closed door my vision blurs the light.
I have run down the tunnel tunneling towards the black abyss.
Crashing through an unknown path I ended up in bliss
96 · Aug 2020
Save the children.
Anna Josephine Aug 2020
Little girls are taught a lesson
To just say "no" when they feel threatened.
Your private parts are your own
No one will touch if you say "no".
Little boys are taught to watch pretty girls without their tops.
Girls are yours to touch and play
This is what boys call love today.
We need to educate girls and boys on ****** health equally! We can begin to put an end to child *******, ****, ****** abuse and *** trafficking if we begin to Educate our children equally and carefully. Let's fight for some decency in society. This poem is stereotyping males and females. I realise not all girls and boys are brought up this way but it also highlights the sickening reality that many children are not sufficiently educated in safe equal ****** health. For many children by the time they are taught the "say no" lesson it's already to late and they are left feeling as if they did something wrong. Children and adults are not always able to just "say no". Politics is never that simple. Let's protect our children and spread positive ****** health education messages for those who need it most.
96 · Jan 2021
Read me
Anna Josephine Jan 2021
I can't write poetry. I just bleed poetically. Spilling dark thoughts and emotions accidentally. I can't write poetry I'm a terrible closet, I open and tumble authentically. Hoping someone out there can learn to read me.
95 · Jun 2020
I'm alone in my head
Anna Josephine Jun 2020
I'm alone in my head
I'm speaking out loud
I'm hiding all my secrets then bursting and spilling them out.
I'm alone in my head
I'm shutting them out
I need someone to hold me and stay so I can figure this out
I don't want to be alone in my head
I don't want to let it all out
95 · Oct 2020
How silly you are
Anna Josephine Oct 2020
If I seem silly to you,
Its because every time I see you I'm suddenly reminded you exist in the real world too.
Dreams waking up and walking into a room of realness is enough to make anyone feel silly.
94 · Dec 2020
The girl who lived
Anna Josephine Dec 2020
She lived like a smudge.
Nothing defined her yet somehow, everything did.
She was hard to comprehend and easy to spill.
Her ink well personality confused all, most of all herself.
Prominent and invisible she liked to tie things up with words.
Writing poetry and imagining new worlds.
No one quite knew what was wrong with her and few dared to ask.
She got used to living with lies, she got good at making her own.
Weaving and watching she tailored her mask.
If she let you in, she would be your everything,
observant as a hawk and shy as a mouse,
she would steal your thoughts and morph them with her own.
Mirror face she reflected everything you wanted,
a personalised friendly home.
If she wasn’t so complicated and sad,  
she would be unitive.
She could be anyone but no one distinctive.
Slowly the lying and hiding started to break her mask,
melting like candle wax her brain began burning.
She couldn’t hide any longer
when she tried it was too obvious.
people stared raw and obnoxious.
Medusa exposed she tried to hide.
She hated life and it showed.
Her brain taught her ways to cope,
and some days it whispered, “just don’t”.
Nihilism is too subtle.
Her life quickly became about survival.
Trying to get to heaven seemed the most viable option,
hell had lasted long enough,
She put her life up for auction.
She never saw if heaven existed after all,
She decided if I am to live, I will live for love.
93 · Aug 2020
Dear Ben
Anna Josephine Aug 2020
I'd read your hand written letters a thousand times more.
Your notebook style mind was open for me to explore.
You drew my feelings like rivers and saw where they frayed.
I never loved you but I wish that you had stayed.
All my mistakes tore the little book bindings you made.
You where the only one compatible with my un compatible brain.
90 · Sep 2020
The bread maker
Anna Josephine Sep 2020
like a half baked loaf of bread,
love still rising in the oven,
the warmth helps you grow.
You, a typical loaf oblivious to the hugging heat.
Doughy and innocent I wait.
Heat forming and falling.
I feel like butter melting by the stove
patiently awaiting a slice of you.
88 · Dec 2020
Match me
Anna Josephine Dec 2020
I hate boxes, straight edged rules and no exceptions, I love blurred visiuals the almosts and undicipherables. I crave bruises, pompous poppy signatures, signs of mischief and adventures. Do not box me or bruise me, let me be free and blurry, full of adrenaline and ugly laughter.
87 · Apr 2021
Piano lessons
Anna Josephine Apr 2021
When I was little my mums friend had a piano, I remember going to her house for dinner one night and I was so excited when I saw this huge upright instrument, I'd never played with a piano before and I just thought it was magnificent. Uniquely, like most things I did as a kid, I used the piano to tell stories. I thought the deep notes on the left represented goblins and monsters and the high, light notes on the right were the fairies and princesses. I would mash the lower keys and say things like "then the big bad goblin came into the woods" and as I fiddled with the high notes I would talk about how the magical fairies saved the day. Its funny how black and white things were when you were a child, there was good and there was bad and everything had a happy ending, now as I fumble with my own keyboard years later I realise that the most beautiful music comes when both high and low are played in unison. Like ying and yang no story is ever soley good or bad, but a mixture of the two, true beauty comes when  highs and a lows are shaped as one, and that I think is the beauty of life.
86 · Dec 2020
Mr motivator
Anna Josephine Dec 2020
There was something about him that meant everything he said motivated me to be better, When others uttered the same it made me cry. It's as if he was saying get well soon instead of its fine you're ill.
84 · Jan 2020
Before I sleep.
Anna Josephine Jan 2020
How beautiful it is to watch the orange glow.
Scarred with white and punched with yellow.
What a spectacle to watch you fade to blue.
I Stand in awe of your blackish purple hue.
I look again and little lights appear.
How full it must be in the stratosphere.
My eyes are heavy, the colours fade.
Baby blue, surprise! its a brand new day.
84 · May 2020
Fractions
Anna Josephine May 2020
A sleepy head lay heavy, half slung between the covers.
The smell of cotton snuffing his senses. The warmth kept his body still, as sleep came drifting down on him.
Old books browned, faded and stacked watching as he snored.
Dust in a time whirl danced from the ceiling.
Spiderwebs weaving.
The croaking critters began to welcome the evening.
The moon shone lonely that night it's bright light shying behind grey curtains.
The old man slowly hesitating awakes, to a memory much faded.
Unknown books and unknown linen.
The nurse re-enters and helps him to sleep again.
A poem for all the elderly who are separated from family and familiarity during these strange times.
83 · Nov 2020
Men
Anna Josephine Nov 2020
Men
God! men are damnable creatures!
I'm beginning to see why people believe you are female.
Why did you make them so insufferably ignorant and belittling and mean!
They don't need to be that keen!
Why the attraction?
I don't understand!
Why make them fools to feed from our hands?
I like most better at a distance,
Distance enough,
So I can sniff out their intentions.
Call each one's bluff.
There are but a few I must admit
that don't gawk like sharks
at us "little" fish.
So what makes them differ
from the harshest there is
Why are some men like demons and
others well...perfect?
81 · Dec 2020
Mirror girl
Anna Josephine Dec 2020
She had a supernatural ability to read one's mind,
and she left no page unturned,
every face she ever saw she would read and then rehearse.
She could pick at your insecurities before she knew your name, emphasise your interests make you feel you were the same.
Like a mirror, she would reveal,
and adapt to how you feel.
But mirrors are mere objects that reflect and absorb,
She never got to see herself so she lived a life ignored.
77 · Nov 2020
Insanity
Anna Josephine Nov 2020
I'm spinning around again.
I'm still dreaming things I shouldn't
and drinking too much, as if it will make a difference,
and everyone can see it.
They say insanity is being in love
But insanity is hoping you might be too.
76 · Oct 2020
funeral
Anna Josephine Oct 2020
Black slip-on pumps blending with the black nylon tights and the hem of a petite black dress.  
Tears of distress.
Funeral attire that's what I see, when I see you.
If I said you would last much longer  
I'd be a liar.
You're fading and I'm breaking.
Don't let my last memory of you be your funeral.
76 · Oct 2020
quite unrequited
Anna Josephine Oct 2020
I am a pendulum.
swinging endlessly,
knocking out love and aloneness and the bit in between.  
love me, forget me, leave me be.
You are time
waiting, watching me swing
Wishing I'd stop,
On the bit in between.
74 · Oct 2020
blurry byes
Anna Josephine Oct 2020
One day unfortunately soon
you'll be gone.
and I can't accept it yet but you will be.
You will be nowhere and everywhere, sat on the seat in my mind but not really there or here.
You won't be touchable or audible
You won't laugh or cry or drink
you will just be a thought, a memory, a blur
and my god I don't want to lose you to a blur!
like I lost grandad
a coffin, a hand, a fleeting memory
you'll be gone
and there's just too much of you to be gone
I hope I loved you enough
Goodnight forever.
73 · Aug 2020
Evening walks
Anna Josephine Aug 2020
There are a few people you will meet in life that live on your wavelength.
Your thoughts and feelings intertwined.
Inspiration pours from them and they give you life.
Treasure those beings, they're little life tokens.
Perpetual rewards for the paths you've chosen.
73 · Oct 2020
Depression calling.
Anna Josephine Oct 2020
Hello again, I thought we had spoken about this.
The entering without knocking it knocks me out.  
I want you out, now!
You won't.
You'll hang around until February try killing me in January and give me a break at Christmas.
Like clockwork, you arrive yet every time I'm surprised because there's no way to prepare for what you're like.  
You show no remorse, no shame just a living death, full of hate. That's you.  
Now try telling someone that everything you do is you but not you and on and on it ensues.  
It's deadly, like a supplement of poison that no one sees until you go into anaphylactic shock and maybe just maybe someone will realise who knocked.  
The invisible killer that likes to watch their victims suffer, You just love the suffering.  
Just when I think the antidote is kicking in you slap me again.  
You make my home feel like a prison it's so dark so cold and there's no escape and no one can see you're not home.
Just hoping there's still a home to go to after the war.
Every year you break a little more.
Then when I'm broken I sit waiting, rebuilding, wishing.
Praying you don't knock on my door.
72 · Nov 2020
let me be
Anna Josephine Nov 2020
I wish you understood that this is me trying.
I'm not as perfect as you expect me to be,
I did a great job pretending,
but my will is ending.
please just let me be a nothing,
let me breathe fresh air and not be trying to prove something!
let me cry because I'm sad,  
and not have to justify that.
let me be, please just let me be!
because if I don't stop pretending,
there will be no me,
left to be.
69 · Aug 2020
Mr paper
Anna Josephine Aug 2020
Dear, Mr paper
I'm writing you a letter.
An ink to page bond,
To help me feel better.
69 · Oct 2020
shy death
Anna Josephine Oct 2020
last night I wished to die,
in the morning I ate like a queen,
dying makes you hungry.
Life feels dreamy
I keep on sleeping,
slowly fading
you won't hear me go.
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