Tag: anniepoem

I Am A Tornado But You Touched Me Like I Was A Flower

I am thick thighs and a mess of hair 
bitten nails and bloody thumbs,
clumsy feet and a mind on overdrive–  
a tornado is not supposed to be
beautiful. 
But you touched me like I was
inside out,
like you had seen my bones
spun from widow’s silk
and feared that
with just your lips you could destroy me. 

How The Words Get On The Page

They are all the times
i’ve been put away on a back shelf 
and collected dust. 

All the times my heart has shattered
onto the pages of my notebook and
sullied my fingers black. 

They are the words
I carve onto the pages instead
of into my skin. 

All the times I have felt
my heart was burning in the night sky
instead of in my chest. 

The times I have stood still
among hives of buzzing, 
undulating people. 

When I have been sitting
on my own bed, 
and still felt I wasn’t home. 

When I feel so restless in
my own skin 
that I swallow rainbows so I may
dissolve into darkness and wake up
forgetting. 

You’re Everywhere

You were a new coat of black
polish on my naked nails. 
I settled in quickly, not waiting for you
to dry. 
And as I touched and sat and wrote and ran
you began 
to chip away, and
in little flecks throughout our path
I have left the smallest pieces of you where
only I can find them. 

Falling Apart, Falling Together

Each day jabs its hands
inside my chest
and steals a piece of me.

I am slowly dissolving into
the air, being reassembled into a collage
of the girl that smiles at me 
on the subway and the mailman and
my high school choir director and
that piece of advice my father once told me
that I will never forget. 

I am a masterpiece, the universe’s
papier mache. She is spinning me 
on her wheel and shaping me, 
molding me. 

You Were Scared I’d Break You, But You Broke Me

Why were you so scared
to touch me? 
Did you think the fire would spread
from your fingertips to your tongue–
that I’d burn you? 
Or that I’d splinter
under your skin and bury myself
so deep, I’d be impossible
to pull out? 
Did you believe I’d shatter and
draw your precious blood? (you never
had enough blood to give)
Or were you scared
I’d pull you in closer; that you’d have nowhere
to hide? 

Danny Boy

You showed me where your heart
beat through your chest;
you let me feel
it pulse through all of you. 
I wanted to see the scars
on your bones and take
the walking tour of
your mind, to carve my name
into the walls
of your skull. 
But you wouldn’t take off your
skin for me
and I’m sick of knocking
on doors that don’t
make any sound.