Tag: anniepoem

Mary’s Blue

dark blue– like childhood, like
memories. like
sinking into a dream.
bite marks on the black
plastic instead of
on your lips. 
covered in stickers
of where you’ve been.
your heart’s been torn
off your sleeve and 
the hole it left in the fabric
keeps unraveling. 

Mother

every day we walk on
your back.
we stick needles in
your spine and fill
your lungs with our smoke.
we look you in the eye while
we close our hands around your neck. 

every day you
love us, cleaning our spills
to cradle us again.
we are fleas, but
you love us even when we bite. 

you keep trying to grow.
we keep trying to
cut you down.   

Happy Birthday, Daddy

i don’t have the ocean
in my eyes
or fire in my hair.
i was given
her dark traits, and
though they paint my face, 
my heart is safe
because you have taught me
it is not my sacrifice 
to this world. 

i do not need 
a phenotype to know
you are a part of me. 
every time i’ve hidden 
my mind from the world,
you’ve reminded me
sometimes it is okay
to scream. 
every time i’ve wanted to fly, 
you’ve stood behind me
and watched me go– 
you believed i would soar 
long before i knew i had wings.
let it be evident
through all i create, that you have
watered me well. 

Opening

the door’s been locked for
quite some time now. 
i’ve clasped the keys between
my fingers for so long
i seem to have forgotten i had them. 
it’s hard to let go
when my hand doesn’t know how
to unclench itself anymore. 
it’s painful,
to let the light in.
i have not yet adjusted. i do not yet have
the nerve to
walk through the door frame, 
where vague memories reside. 
these days i’m mostly
nerves, mostly
apprehension.
a steady vibration, a constant
feeling of free fall
in my stomach. i want to
expose my eyes
to things beyond my wooden wall, 
but what if
keeping this door open draws people
inside, and they dirty
my floors or break
my lamp or empty out
my fridge? what if
opening the door leaves me
hollow? 

I See You Clearer From Farther Away

i’ve stopped counting:
the numbers, the macros,
and the days since we last
spoke. the months
we could have been, 
the times i will miss, and
the moments
i wish i could erase you.
i’d been trying to start the car
with the house keys– hoping maybe
if i tried hard enough, 
we’d still be able to run. 
from Neptune i now see that
all those numbers never added up
to anything.

Problems Don’t Just Dissolve

You utter it gently, but
your eyes are accusing
when you say, “you can 
swallow your problems in a pill and
watch them dissolve
in your stomach.”

I know what you really mean–
that I’m taking the easy way out, 
that I’m cheating at life, that you have
real problems. 

Because standing in the kitchen for half
an hour with a jar of peanut butter in my 
hand, counting numbers in my mind and
debating whether to eat
is stupid. 

Because skipping my best friend’s birthday
party because I can’t breathe
in large crowds
is dramatic. 

Because having to write down everything
on a piece of paper before talking to
someone on the phone is just me being
a perfectionist.

Because making someone else order
for me at Subway since I am overwhelmed
by the options– because I can feel the people behind
me in line drilling their eyes into 
my skull, is me
being shy.

Because when I’m having a panic
attack and I choke out, “I can’t breathe,”
I’m being emotional.

Because when I am down and
I can’t figure out why, I’m 
being distant and cold. 

Because mental illness isn’t
real. Because I’m just 
weak. Because struggling with 
what you take for granted every day
isn’t a big deal. 

Every day I must teach
myself to walk, when everyone around
me is running. 
I must learn to quiet
the earthquake in my throat when
my voice shakes. 
I must learn to brush off
the darts you spit
at me. 

You say I am weak,
and for so long I believed it. 
But I am learning my own
strength.

V for Victory

we taped our photos up on
the cinder block walls
and called it home, but
the word was slippery on
my tongue because
anywhere is a prison cell if it’s not
where you want to be. 

i scratched his name into
my wooden dresser
followed by R.I.P.
and that 38″ by 75″ mattress was
my lifeboat through the desert,
leading me to mirages I’d awaken from
with teary eyes and a mouth full
of sand. 

even the toilet paper
had my blood on it.
i would write love on my arms
in marker
to hide my scars,
but kept the ones in my 
eyes exposed
just in case someone could hear
the way i pleaded 
through the receiver: please take me
home, home, home.