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Jan 2017 · 602
Seventeen
Anne Jan 2017
Seventeen girls are lined up on a sidewalk;
Each one a year older than the one beside her.

Hello, One.
All things pure and graceful.
A perfect accident that would put a nebula to shame.
You aren't anything, yet you are so loved.

How do you do, five?
A cluster of merriment and wonder.
I'm sure you're well.
Tell the fairies I still love them.

Hi, Fourteen.
You're nailed in a blizzard,
And I'm sorry.
Lighting yourself on fire will not prevent you from dying.
You will make it.

Good evening, sixteen.
You are kind and harsh; everything you should be.
You're the girl every child is scared to become.

Hello, seventeen.
You're here, you're alive;
And that's all you need to be.
You've been cut, killed, milked and fed to dogs.
Yet you're still here.

But on the opposite side of the pavement, I see more.
Eighteen, nineteen, twenty.
I can see for miles.

I've only been able to read about the past.
I can mail old friends,
re-watch films.

But for the first time in my existence,
I can see a future.

I see girls learning, loving and growing in ways that I can't yet understand.

That's why I thank you;
All of you.
One through seventeen.
You have nearly killed me,
But I owe everything to you.
Yesterday I turn 17 years old; something that I would have thought to be impossible a few years ago.
Anne Oct 2016
Close your eyes.
What do you see?
Darkness, maybe.
Or do you see colours?

Fluorescent , vibrant hues of wonders;
Dancing under your eyelids.
The sun, sending warm tangerine waves into you.
The moon, kissing you goodnight with rich inky indigos and blues.

Cover your ears.
What do you hear?
Silence, maybe.
Or do you hear voices?

Expired conversations that replay differently each time.
****** retro punk tunes you can't remember the names of.
You send yourself letters when no other sound can be heard.
Your address is never forgotten and nothing is left unsaid.
  
You don't need light to see.
You don't need noise to hear.
Just look and listen ,
and you will feel.
Aug 2016 · 683
The Poems I Don't Write
Anne Aug 2016
The poems you don't read
Are the poems I don't write.
The wandering thoughts and puzzle
Pieces that are never found or placed.
The urge to scream,
Or blend into a puddle of melted candy.

I know what you like.
You enjoy the colour pink and sound of pianos and feeling sad.
But the good kind of sad.

I know what you need.
You need to love yourself.
Or at least like yourself.
You need to breathe and create.
You need to dance and breathe.
Please.
Just.
Breathe.

The poems I don't type aren't raw
Or artsy or beautiful or ugly.
They are scared and lonely and everything that I can't put into words.

The poems I don't write are simultaneously the best and the worst.
I don't understand them and it terrifies me.
That's why I don't write them.
But I guess I just did; didn't I?
Aug 2016 · 898
The Wound
Anne Aug 2016
Peel off your skin.
Look at you.
Your mind is gushing from every vein, every slit.
Your fears are being milked from the exposed flesh.

This is you, my friend.
You have been disfigured and morphed into something you don't recognize.
Scabs are cracked open to reveal secrets only you could be selfish enough to cover.

Your blood drips off the tip of your nose at a steady pace;
As you, my friend, watch your face melt into a sink.
You are disgusting but this is you, and
You
Are
Alive.

Friend, you are perfectly honest;
No carbon copies made.
You let yourself bleed and flood this house,
Because that's all you've ever wanted.
You've finally escaped the cage of bones and skin that silenced you.

You alive and you are free.
Aug 2016 · 614
Like Your Mother
Anne Aug 2016
"Keep that up and you'll end up like your mother."

I couldn't understand this message.
This strange jumble invented by my relative.
Keep what up?
What was I doing?

Eating.
I was chomping on a dessert that my aunt had prepared tenderly.
I was at peace with the world
but my uncle's comment left me distraught.

End up like my mother?
That's all I've ever wanted.
My beautiful, kind, selfless, assertive mother.
She was clever as a fox and delicate and a pink pedal.
End up generous and strong?
Yes please!

Still,
This man watching me eat,
Says it as if it is something to avoid.
There wasn't a correlation that could be made in my mind.

Years later,
I revisited the scene,
Only to have my heart weep for that small girl.
That tiny, confused child quietly nibbling on her cake.

Her mother also eating the treat,
But a larger helping for a larger woman.
She had always been large,
But in my mind that meant more room
For love and passion and aspiration.

"Keep that up and you'll end up like your mother."

I did grow over time,
As most children do.
My pounds piled on
And my skin stretched to make room for the garden growing inside of me.
My body grew larger.
But so did my honesty, my beauty and love for the world.

Maybe I did keep up eating cake,
And maybe I did grow in size,
But to say that 'I'm just like my mother',
Is the best complement I could receive.
The layout is super messy but this is something I think about a lot. You have no idea how much you can affect a child just by making a simple joke.
Jul 2016 · 722
Boy
Anne Jul 2016
Boy
There's a boy I know.
He is sweet and kind,
passive yet assertive.
He is beautiful.

This boy and I are friends.
We speak from time to time.
His smile melts my insides &
his eyes make my bones turn inside out.

This isn't a perfect boy.
He is chubby and short.
He loves video games and movies with a passion.
A real nerd.

He's a sun.
Not the sun,
A sun.
He keeps me warm and safe.
He scares me but I know he's helping.

This boy is so beautiful.

I am not beautiful.

I am twisted and selfish and ugly and rotten.
I am too cold to be around the sun.
I will dim his glow & cast shadows on his light.

My solution:
Let the boy be the sun,
Let me the moon,
And maybe one day,
We will cross paths again.
Jul 2016 · 676
I Am Not Creative
Anne Jul 2016
I am free
and joyous
and grateful
and kind
but I am not creating.
I cannot.

My eyes glued shut.
My lips sewed together.
My hands chopped off.
My body closed by the same monsters that slit my wrists and changed my name.

The storm has passed but the damage has not.
The demons won't release their claws around my throat nor the teeth that sink into my chest.

Ideas and images run at uncharted speeds,
racing and buzzing past every corner of my mind.
Where do I put them?
Where do they go?

I'm trying to find her again:
the girl who painted fairies & danced without socks & wrote stories about ghosts and mermaids.

Those pixies, bare feet and adventures are still floating.
Waiting to be spilled out onto a page, a canvas, a body; any surface worth noticing.  

The thoughts have been patient and kind for too long.
I fear they won't wait any longer.
They urge and itch to be set free, but without any luck, they melt.

They boil and drip into what can only be described as gone.  
I fear that once gone; they will forever be lost.

I am not inventing, I am not expressing.
I am simply wasting, hoping someone else might construct things for me.
I am not creating.

— The End —