The thing about the river,
is it takes away your pain,
absorbing all yout tragedies
and locking them far away.

I've got black holes in my memories
from where the river rushed.
Left behind all I find
is a minefield drenched in dust.

The thing about the river,
is it gives you memories new,
fills up with a distraction
to stop you falling through.

Because millions of fragments
are enough to peice together
a distorted crystalisation
of a time when things were better.

Yes the thing about the river,
is it's not a simple fete.
It takes your childhood in hands
and plasters it complete.

- Anisah Mariah

There's dirt under my fingernails
There's pen marks on my hand
I don't know how they got there
I just don't understand
I'm curled up in a corner
My stomach is tied in knots
There's something crawling in my throat
I can't connect the dots
I've lost the feeling in my arm
From clutching it to my head
Crying up the distance
That they should have made instead
Faintly in the backdrop
They simmer in something mean
I wash my hand with soapy water
But the marks can still be seen
All I hear are glasses
They smash towords the floor
All I smell is putrid gas
From the night out just before
I'm getting kind of sleepy
And we're past the midnight mark
But it's difficult to dream
When the dreams you made are dark
But nontheless I'm sleeping
I move but make no sound
And I wake up in the morning
There's empty bottles all around
I don't know what happened to you
Because the laughter falls like sand
But there's dirt under my fingernails
And pen marks on my hands.

- Anisah Mariah

When I was one I looked into the mirror,
I saw a blank canvas,
Begging for paint to ink the surface
And etch deep into itself.
I remember the hope of opportunities
When I realized what I’ll be.
I’ll be whatever I want to be,
And maybe more.

When i was three I looked into the mirror,
All I saw was a wide smile,
It was warm and comforting.
Maybe I miss that smile a bit.
I contemplate the joy,
Joy that steamed from fear
Of hate that I overcame.
It has always been my proudest moment.

When I was five I looked into the mirror.
I saw the excitement in my eyes,
Anticipating the first day of school,
With a curiosity not seen.
It was almost as obvious
As when I first told a story.
Nothing was able to beat the jubilation
Of my very own world.

When I was thirteen I looked into the mirror,
the picture was too distorted to see.
Sometimes I thought I could sense
a hint of that smile I used to have
Other times, the mirror waterfalled,
Reflecting all the self worth I felt.
My heart dropped to my stomach,
The waterfall was bare.

Now I am seventeen I look into the mirror
I see a crossroads with two paths,
one lit up with starlight,
tempting me with the universe ahead.
I can hear the thud of my excitement,
- it beats ferociously.
I can feel a tingling sensation
- the regret of the other road.

When I am twenty five, I’ll look into the mirror.
I want to see the independence,
Of a young woman,
Learning what I passion for.
I want to see a beauty,
In the thirst for knowledge,
And the drive for time
Pushed along in every country that I visit.

When I am fourty-two I’ll look  into the mirror.
I want to see a family,
So light-hearted, cosy and fun.
A house unlike the one I grew up in.
I want to bathe in the warmth of the sun,
As laughter echoes in the air
Coaxed from my heart
From the melodies that make cities grow.

But I wait for the day when I’ll look into the mirror,
And barley give it a second glance.
Because I’ll know how fruitless it is.
There is nothing that a mirror can tell me that I don’t already know.
Even if I look and the image is distorted,
Or faded from the withering of the seams,
I wait for when I’ll know it’s okay.
Because an image is the only thing I see.
-Anisah Mariah

"When this world finally collapses, a new one shall build and rise from its ashes."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"When the old world can end:
No blood shall be seized
And no sorrows exploited for selfish demeans."

                                                      ­       "When the new world can speak:
                                                          ­          it shall speak its name to me,
                                       it shall cry with temptation, envy and need."

"When the old world will burn:
it will light up a passion
and inspire a nation of lonely abstraction."

                                                  ­         "When the new world shall dance:
                                                          ­            it shall dance with its sisters
                                            a union protected by hand held conviction
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Our world was a reality, not destiny, but true
and this new world only lasts 8 hours and a few.
But the situation of imagination deprivation, this is dire.
So shut your eyes and let your mind rest for a while.
That night will come and this day will pass.
A universe painted and a galaxy grasped.
This is as season, its a feeling, its a wish,
The hope for the future is this dream that exists.

-By Anisah Mariah

The worst sight I can see is a blank page;
the white sheet void of any substance but unspoken words,
because these words seem to drown me
and poison my lips with an itch
that echoes through my fingertips.
There's no space to hear
and there's no sounds to see,
and yet this is when everything fits.
It's like a driving force, an ache, and a pain.
Its hurts and stabs and wails to be satisfied,
but when it is it smiles and swims and flies.
It moves with the rhythm of my heart,
it doesn't fill the space but how can it fill itself.
Despite the melancholy feeling it can leave me with,
there's something quite therapeutic in
the swish and sprint of the pen as it glides past.
A whirlwind of calamities.
But good calamities.
I pick up the pen.
I am breathing and suffocating all at once
and its like opening your eyes for the first time.
A whoosh of self-confidence injects itself into my veins
and seeps through my scalp.
There's no other point in time,
except for when the letters sing,
that I feel so true,
and so wholly me.
It is in this moment that my head
is sitting on a roundabout
and laying on the grass underneath a willow tree.
What is that life that explodes onto the trees beneath my hands?
Its a vibrant detonation of every colour imaginable,
every thought thinkable,
and every life liveable.
Nothing and everything is written.
The pen slips from my grasp.
Its spell is over.
Now, I feel alone.

-Anisah Mariah