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I live underground-
with fiendish hands
that reach through
the dirt and mass
grasping at a sound.

To their mile-wide glance
of white wall eyes
my lungs collapse
crumble and fold-
taken in and out of sight.

Through earthly glass
I am a broken con artist
my cries a faux pas
my skin off-brand
while somewhere
a heart beats embodied.

Amidst
this push-pull throng
speaks a long goodbye
to dead space,
bearing dead weight
down on the world-

Commodify my breath.
Call me sanctioned off.
Ship me to the doorstep
of a funeral home
where I can be buried again
in my fever-hot coffin.
One would call it a soul
forever dropping in-
from the other side.
Walls closing in,
Gasping for air.
Needing to run,
But not knowing where.

Every corner seems haunted,
There's no light to be seen.
Hearing such voices,
No one could know what they mean.

They chase me,
Everything does.
Everything is nothing,
Like how it first was.

Too much pressure, oxygen runs out,
I'm running out of life.

Is this how it feels like,
To be buried alive?

-anoeska
Abi Winder Aug 22
if anyone cares enough
to ask:
“why poetry?”
i'll breathe deep

and i'll tell them about Keats.
i’ll tell them that his was the first poem
i truly ever read.
really understood.

because despite years of schooling,
i hadn’t connected with anyone else’s work,
and it was solely because he wrote what i couldn’t.
the things i couldn't yet form into cohesive thoughts.

i’ll tell them about my english teacher,
who wrote the book that ignited my love for reading,
who read the first draft of every poem i wrote,
and every poem i’ve written since.

who encouraged me
endlessly,
(even if those drafts were entirely unreadable).
and i’ll tell them that i owe her my craft.

i’ll tell them about all of my failed narratives
that still sit incomplete on my computer,
and i’ll tell them about all of the finished
and polished poetry in comparison.

so if one day someone cares enough to ask me:
“why poetry?”
i’ll tell them that i stumbled upon it,
but have chosen it since.

most importantly,
i’ll tell them that it’s what allowed me to dig
up all that i have buried.
feel all the things that i have kept hidden

underneath.
Abi Winder Aug 17
i am most afraid of heights.
and the ocean.
and the vastness of the desert.

i’m also afraid of spiders,
and snakes,
and all things that bite.

i’m afraid of drowning.
of being buried alive.
of fire.

i’m afraid of failure.
of letting people down.
of never achieving anything good.

i'm terrified of dying,
and choking on my words
and feeling this pit in my stomach forever.
He opens the grave,
Not to see the light.
What not can he save.
So simmered despite.
Simmering high flames,
The beast not in chains.
It’s the contempt, court,
Replaced tennis, brains.
Blasted are the aims!
Come time hacked discord…
For who fall the Duke,
From toilets to ****.
At what belief shook,
Did he die for it?
Jordan Gee May 2022
God made me into a marionette
He pulled me from the dust
He scooped me out of coals.
He breathed life into my belly
and now they call me animated earth.
He carved my bones from alabaster stones
long buried under piles of pine needles and leaves
He sang songs of Light and Life
and put them in my ears
and taught me all the words
and cut me silver keys.
now i stand up tall
like the Lighthouse of Alexandria
or the Colossus of Rhodes
i take showers under jungle waterfalls
full of orchid petals
and with angel fish climbing up the rock walls.
my head and all my limbs are hanging by
golden silken strings and threads
and where I walk the moss and lichens grow.
He fashioned my eyes from glass
blown over the hot geysers
and sulfur springs
of thermopylae
and the salt basin dunes.
He plucked my pupils from the pregnant blackness
of the Void.
He struck them over steel and flint
and the sparks made it bright enough to see.
my heart is a time-piece
keeping minutes with its beats
like a great shadow cast behind a sphere.
the elements once kept me apart from me my identity,
I was a hungry ghost
walking around town like a hypodermic voodoo doll.
everytime I turned around
I tripped over another basket full of rattlesnakes
hissing from both ends.
I gave up and crossed my heart
and gave it over to the chemical egregore
hoping I would die while somehow staying alive
and learning how to fly away home-
so i could leave all the piles of ashes and teeth alone
and maybe plant a rose garden.

but God made of me a marionette
strung me up from strings of silken gold.
He breathes for me,
and dances me to the music of the spheres
and now the whole planet is a
Hanging Garden of the Fallen Babylon
and now I keep snakes
as exotic pets
and as company
when i’m lonely
and for afternoon tea.
I am suspended
It’s like the only time I can see outside of this hole
Is when I’m trying to make sure others don’t see
That I’m digging it deeper
And
Deeper
And
Deeper
And falling
Further
And
Further
And
Further
Until I can’t get out
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