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Anna Robinson Poem
I dress like her and listen to music I think she might like just so i don’t feel completely alone.
She wasn’t even that kind. Or thoughtful. She was just hurt. And I like to think she would understand me. So I keep her in my pocket, like some kind of sacred amulet. Or maybe one of those little woven worry dolls that are supposed to ease your troubles. I hold her close to my face and I whisper my heartbreaks and sorrows and trivial inconveniences to her.
Sitting in a parked car in the Walgreens parking lot I cry silently and clutch at her nothingness and watch the as old homeless woman pushes her cart across the dark pavement.
And then I start the car, and drive home without turning on my headlights. I have work tomorrow. I do need my beauty sleep, you know.
Copyright © Anna Robinson | Year Posted 2023
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Anna Robinson Poem
no need for publicity. for praise. for the approval of my more popular friends.
its a quiet kind of yearning, a lurch in my chest that is barely containable.
the desire for a rainy day, the house to ourselves, for cold, sock-less feet on the kitchen floor, and for drawn blinds.
a real desire. a private desire. one that i have kept almost completely to myself. it lurks there, that desire, in darkness, at the back of my thoughts, and it is only ever permitted to step into the light when my mind is at it’s slipperiest.
slippery from sleep. or alcohol. or pleasure.
but when i dip my toes into that pool of desire, it is not love, or happiness that eats me and swallows me up. it is shame. hot, sticky, vomit colored shame. once or maybe more than once i almost drowned in it.
and so i always retreat. back to the “real” world. the physical, that is. and i go back to school, and do my little jobs that i do, and i throw sheets over my mirrors and i put on a nice, respectable dress.
but the lurch in my chest remains. i remember the shame, but it does not. and soon my mind will be slippery again, slippery from sleep. or alcohol. or pleasure. and maybe this time, finally, someone will have cleaned the pool.
Copyright © Anna Robinson | Year Posted 2023
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Anna Robinson Poem
tell me how you feel inside.
because time is silent again.
and you need to let go.
let go of a past that does not exist.
sway with him
(sway with you, sweet girl)
into the lavender foyer of dreamtime.
burry your father
still living
still loving
still breathing hot beer breath into your face all through the night
still ripping and eating your flesh with this crooked bottle-cap teeth
burry your mother
still living
still loving
still laying sticky and fearful under your twin bed as the old man creeps down the stairs
still howling like a dog at the moonless sky
burry your sister
still living
still loving
still pulling a gun out from under her Sunday best
still trapped with you in a tangled embrace that could be easily misunderstood.
cry into the shower drain because somebody closed your bedroom window.
cry into the shower drain because the vacuum doesn’t work.
cry into the shower drain because there are bugs pouring from your book shelf, from your closet, from your eyes and ears and mouth and nose.
tell me how you feel inside.
for time is silent again.
Copyright © Anna Robinson | Year Posted 2023
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Anna Robinson Poem
Acrylic paint and dust. I can taste sunlight. Hear wind-chimes that have not been invented yet. That have already disintegrated into the deserts of the apocalypse.
I am at home in this living room. Even if i am not welcome.
St. Ambrose’s hymns are sung by children whose faces i’ll never remember.
Whose voices will weave into the river if my mind with grace and an undeniable sorrow.
Ripped dresses, burned houses, and tax audits late into the spring.
I find divinity in my shoelaces.
There is beauty not only in creation,
but also in the act of letting go.
Copyright © Anna Robinson | Year Posted 2023
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Anna Robinson Poem
The summer sea sky has traveled inland
and the rolling of the Spanish hills make me hungry for adventure
I am feet on the dashboard, a mouth full of salt water,
a nosebleed that is somehow romantic
I am lost in the vast wilderness of summertime,
the gray-green galaxies of 9 PM daylight,
and all I see is you
Every star, every blade of grass,
every partially patched pothole on the road to church
I can taste your breath after I brush my teeth,
hear your voice after I turn off my records for the evening
I smell you in the lilac that blooms by my parent's house,
feel you in the linens that hang on the clothesline
I lay in the grass and your face stares at me from the clouds
I wish to be free from this love.
This soul-consuming, mind-burning, gut-wrenching love.
Copyright © Anna Robinson | Year Posted 2023
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Anna Robinson Poem
In the mirror is a galaxy,
It's white and black and blue.
It gives to me an alloquy,
Then relocates in my shoe
The mouth of God is open
Her words are soft but firm
A web of parallels unbroken
A new knot at every turn
A day of true connection
A night of sweet decay
I pray for loss of circumspection
I dip my hands into the clay
I do not know for certain
But I cannot not believe
Let me pull back the darkened curtain
Let me reconnect with Eve
Copyright © Anna Robinson | Year Posted 2023
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