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3d · 52
Strong Roots
anna 3d
The tree by the viaduct
violently fell, splintered
in late January's storm.
It had happened at night;
left to tell stories to the worms
about when the stars
waved back.

The pigeons in our garden
didn't sleep on those
stormy early-mornings.

Spring sprouts greener
grass amongst wet moss.
Splinters raise sharp fingernails
to scratch the sky; beckoning
to the heavens that try their best
to welcome the shattered trunk.

The bough bowed to the ground,
yet buds blister their bright
colours into a burst of blossom
when spring begins to warm
the frozen pavements. A
new life - attractive pink,
romantically scattered along
its own dying bark.
Lying over the grass, ready to
return to the soil when
the last of the sweet sap dries
and the pink fades into dull brown.

But this afternoon,
blessed in cold April sunlight
the bloom of the fallen
tree seems twice
as bright against green
than it would have
against a misty grey-blue.
(WIP) the fallen tree still blooms - it isnt ready to decay yet
anna Mar 10
Your arms
ripping at the seams,
as your pain pours into
ordered lines.
Red warning tape.
I say nothing
as each night
you add another tally
to your rising score.

I don't want to make you uncomfortable.

Silent acknowledgement
hides in the gaps between glances
as you ask me
if the short sleeves are okay.
I tell you no one will notice,
that no one will care,
as my heart rises
to the back of my throat
and your arms
blur into a wet red.

We tread together but I
can't hold your hand.
Should I say something?
Should I ask up front?
Should I look at your eyes
and confront it?
Or is that a betrayal of the
comfort in my silence.
The silence of support or
a bystander's shame?
Is it all the same?

Reaching out, a lifeline,
a baseline of decency.
You underscore every emotion
in vermillion, powered by
something only you
can deal with. When you lean on me
to root you in place I can't move.
I am helpless against you.

I hold tissues to your
fissures and figure out the best
of the worst, and test the boundaries
of where it hurts.
this isn't the best literary wise but its very personal - watching someone you love suffer but not being able to do anything about it
Mar 7 · 286
Bells
anna Mar 7
If I went blind,  I
know that you would
swallow bells so that
I could find my way beside
you. And if you stumbled
down to your knees, I would
pull my eyelashes out from
unseeing eyes
one by one, and press
them into your
fingertips, offering you wishes,
one by one.
Mar 2 · 115
Alstroemeria
anna Mar 2
We knew each other before.
We lay under oak trees,
scattering the sky with leaves
and rotted together into the dirt,
as the moon scattered the sky
with stars. Flying stars.
I see your face in
reflections across water,
two boughs,
one canopy,
glimmering in vibrant colours
against blue. As we lay, you grew
flowers - Peruvian lilies - from
the soil that became of your palms.
Ever the giver.
Feb 23 · 293
Marshmallow Dust
anna Feb 23
It's 2015, summertime, with
an afternoon sunshine
gently roasting the cheeks
of a little girl into a
healthy flush. The sweet
sanctuary of the cafe after
school; a fresh playground
amidst the summer heat.
Familiarity, an endless finality of
every poster and notice
memorised through timeless
hours, teaching her
how to read through adverts for
baby sitters
ballet instructors
late-night knitting groups.
School tie discarded, slung
over the back of a squeaky
cafe chair, the usual, she drags
her mum to the counter,
towards the fiery face smiling
behind the till. Warm eyes,
sparkling with stories and life,
already talking to her mum about
her new school teacher
the new muffin recipe
her dad's latest gig.
Her face, bronzed by foreign heat
folds as she guffaws across the cafe,
careless, laughing , at a joke
the little girl doesn't yet
understand. Handfuls
of pink marshmallows,
sweet and pure, exchange hands
with a wink and a 'don't tell your mum'.
The girl sticks two together and calls them butterflies.
The broken clock near the door
shows the same time
as it did an hour ago, hands suspended, never-ending.

I carry flowers, an expensive bunch
of lilies and roses,
tilted in towards my chest - like
a child in a green paper blanket - to protect
them against the gale as
I carry sympathy home. The rain
soaks through the paper. I nip
off a dead leaf between my forefinger
and thumb, thoughts lingering,
nose turning numb. Four years
since I spoke to Mandy, at
'Mandy's Cafe!'
whisked away by time briskly slipping.
Moving house, growing up.
And yet, when
the sun comes out later today,
I see a little girl with scooter-hit
ankles, and glitter in her hair
reaching out a tiny ink-stained hand
for a warm buttered roll
from a hand memorised
through timeless hours.
May you rest in peace ❤
Feb 18 · 251
9:00am
anna Feb 18
By now it's well past nine,
but all I do is part the blinds,
head spinning, hair awry,
messed up sheets, covers up high.
And my day disappears. In my bedroom
my house, while powerful
people make powerful choices,
powerful problems, as I
pour another coffee, blinking back haze,
a stupid teenage phase.

It's past nine and all I do is
blur another line. Overlook the
scope of what I know we can't escape.
Where affluence is influence,
privilege; potential. Fighting a frenzy
threatening my future.
I stare at my windows foggy glass
in a quiet room, inconsequential.
As numbers feed sinners
and a sinner's scent lingers.

My afternoon morning-voice vocalises
prospects - don't expect experience
except where artists lay down
to die.
Should I go out and have a walk?
Should I shock my mind awake? Awake
away from mistakes - take away the
ache for a clean slate, for my state
is stained and tainted - tongue tied.

It's past nine. My school shoes
are worn through, but they're mine. I
pull the laces too tight, constricting;
grasping control where control
contributes only to collapse. Collapsing,
as they're wading through the
landfill to find a throne to
recline on, willing to
pile up any bodies that they need to
climb on. Tears freeze on my
cheeks into pearls. They sell
them as necklaces admist the peril
of a nation with drowning youth - no
fear, no thought - the truth.

They poison air with gases they
can't name, and breathe the last
lungful and avoid all blame as
the air is ****** out of
the wind. My window. Suffocate.

It's well past nine, should I get
up in the meantime?
Feb 16 · 205
Sugar
anna Feb 16
You carry my heart between your teeth,
trapped in front of warmth and
bathed by breath.
Sharp incisors clenched,
piercing flesh, breaking surfaces.
Sweet red blood across
sweet red lips.
I might develop this into a longer piece later on??
Feb 13 · 163
Rosemary Mint
anna Feb 13
I rinse my face, cold with no soap, not
waiting for water to warm.
The droplets race in uniform rivulets,
stroking, lukewarm, unrivaled
down my cheeks - a careful tease,
without competition. I'm not sure
if it's hurt or an aching hunger, or just
a longing for what I never had, a tainting anger.
Feb 10 · 173
Cloud Fishing
anna Feb 10
We sit on the edge of the horizon,
and dangle our legs.
hoping that
The Sun
will kiss our feet,
and introduce us to
The Moon,
who she spends forever chasing,
but will never
catch.
Feb 10 · 143
Green Auburn
anna Feb 10
The transition from summer to autumn;
forgetting the dead
to pull leaves into mourning,
sweet residues.
Dead beneath the cold;
the proof of living.
Feb 10 · 441
Fourteenth
anna Feb 10
I want to be caressed, gently bittersweet,
like a lame horse before the
bullet. Hand along my cheek through
ruined fur; expression dripping
ruinous leaks.

I want the same wind that abuses my
clothes to stroke down the
flyaways in my hair. The notes spat
through gusts grimacing
at negligence.

I want to be held onto like a fleeting,
fading memory of a long life lived
still lingering. My eyelashes brushed
off my cheeks-- a wish of
affection, desire.

I want to curl around the sun like
rays of ether. I reach for the stars, their
distant dream, but they offer only
celestial gleam, transparent
light, intangible between
outstretched grasps.

I fantasise of fate, of destiny,
but I'm not sure I can keep waiting
for love to fall into my lap.
I invest in the inevitable
but I'm sick of the meantime, of hating
my friends for what they have through
eyes of spiteful longing.
Feb 5 · 225
Migration in Autumn
anna Feb 5
The world around me is unknown. The
swirled images, harsh stone,  blue eyes,
skyscapes, confused sunsets.
Each whispered word, each empty touch.

If the moon shone just as bright,
what would be the sake of the beauty of the sunrise?
If the stars could fill the void,

why would the sun bother rising?
Why would clouds cover horizons?

when all I want is it to stop,
to still, to stunt, to sigh, to breathe
to be. But the world spins faster,

and I blink through a clouded haze
at the calm of now, the facts,
the brink of crowded days.
Feb 5 · 432
Fog
anna Feb 5
Fog
For the second time, I'm five
watching the rain pelt the ground outside,
contained behind the glass which
fogs with the heat of the kitchen.
My granny laughs at her own jokes,
leaning over the kitchen counter cutting
up vegetables into boiling water.
anna Feb 5
I think about your old haircut and
I miss muddy torn up shoes;
scuffed canvas, stained laces.
The tote-bag with a badge patchwork
forgotten in your house, now an identically
rigid, faux-leather
handbag. Homogeneous.

Your eyes narrow when I laugh too
hard, at something we used to like. You
wince and turn away,
behind your freshly highlighted hair.
You cut off the last of the
colour you'd begged for. You tell
me you never cared for the
things we used to love, so
I shut my mouth
and grapple with your change.

I wrote you a letter, handwritten and
hand folded, in tea-stained paper
and ****** red ink,
my heart displayed for you. You pinned it
up against your mirror. Sun bleached
and binned. The text message you
returned to me deleted itself last year.

I think about the rips in your tights
and the dirt under your fingernails
and search;
but find manicured perfection masking
any remains. I paint my nails and
mourn the friendship
we had, while you sit down and smile
beside me each morning.
You've polished your gemstones
into mirrors.

Why are you so desperate to ****
the girls we used to be?
This is a messy poem but so are we.
Jan 31 · 307
Coffee Stained Jumpers
anna Jan 31
With acrylic I paint the crumbs on my plate,
the dregs of my drained coffee mug,
the torn and crumpled tissue beside it.
The best cup of coffee ive ever had,
the perfectly buttery toast, still warm,
reduced to traces, ugly remains.
I paint a sad still-life to remember,
with hindsight clouded eyes
the flavours I couldn't taste
before they touched my tongue.
Jan 31 · 94
My Bathroom Mirror
anna Jan 31
The mirror shines an echo of reality
a thousand times blurrier than I see.
The white lies praise closure, toxic autobiography,
as wax eyes glaze over, magnetic abnormality.

Painted mouth, a harsh sculpted shape.
Torn plastic hair, a blocked-off escape.
Between the fluorescence and the silver reply
the fruits of my labour or a sordid
fruit fly?

The scars on my shoulders, the spots on my face;
saturated colours polluting the lace.
Rouge tinted balm, a turned sickly ochre,
My elbows together so my chest looks fuller,
shoulders narrower, triangular figure;
carved by an egoist, all angles and fissures.

The moisturiser refuses to sink into my skin,
a tantaliser of trial, on the surface, a swim.
Impenetrable, inaccessible, my hands rip the surface.
A false doll face with a fast fading purpose.
Jan 22 · 108
Sail Ship
anna Jan 22
But I think to myself now,
on these many auburn nights,
a year passed,
How lucky I am to have something
to miss amidst the fleeting
haze of life.

A photo I took three summers
ago; a boat immortalised behind glass.
It had reminded me of the careful details
and perfect colours, delicate strings
strung tall into ropes, pen barrels
into hard iron pipes.
  
The photo I took, buried under years,
a drop colliding with the sea,
indistinguishable.
The image is flooded with the fact
that it was never seen as I had intended.

Three summers ago, I looked at it,
and thought of him.
Though it was never shown,
it sits, buried.
Because, this winter, I look at it and
think of him.

How lucky am I, to have loved and lost?
How lucky I am, to have loved.
Jan 22 · 110
With Sympathy
anna Jan 22
"We're going to your uncle's house first,
then we will drive to the
Cemetery afterwards."

The word  
Cemetery
hit me then like the wing of a bird
struggling to beat against stormy wind,
clinging to currents to stay airborne.

It was nothing but what I had expected.
And yet, the plainness of such a word
pulled the rug from under my black shoes,
and sent me to the ground.

The ground, that was covered in
worms and mud,
unsettled and rearranged.
Wilting flowers stuffed into the windowsill vases.

The night before, my water had boiled over
You can, and you will. This is not about what you can or can't do.
Do you really not see how selfish you are?
This is so far above you.
  
My mum takes some flowers from
on top of the casket  
before it is claimed by the soil and no longer ours.
A red rose. A thistle. Baby's breath.
They are for my granny. She cannot make it.

Later, I hang them on our kitchen wall,
turned upside down, the hidden buds.
Here, they will dry out
and last forever with faded colours.
  
The clumsy semi-circle we form
listens to verses from the Minister,
huddled under shared umbrellas  
hiding from rain, though our faces are wet.

Later, the sky will clear,
an insistent spring afternoon,
as we listen to the entirety of his song,
my grip digging into the hands at our side,  
holding on to help us let go.

It ends with laughter
on our puffy faces
the sun breaking the rain-clouds outside
because there is nothing else to do
but to do nothing.
  
The clouds leak sorrows all night
as the world grieves
because how could it not?
In the kitchen, a window
left open spits a waterfall of wind
sending cards of condolence
sweeping to the floor.   

Tomorrow, we will drive past the
closed gates of the Cemetery
on our way to the Hospital
to deliver the flowers,
immortialised in their death.
My Grandad Geoff

— The End —