poem – The Orbital

How do you answer a question without questioning your answer?

16Nov

By Anna DiedrichsenNo Comments

How do you answer a question without questioning your answer?

By Anna Diedrichsen How do you write a love poem without confessing too much? Do you only write down half of what you think? Do you write like instead of love hoping they’ll understand either way? Do you dial down on the pink and instead use a dark grey? How do you speak without sharing too much? Do you ask questions, trying not to care? Do you let your sight wander, avoiding their eyes? Do you wait until someone asks you to share and then only tell them quiet white lies? How do you live without wanting to move on up? Do you stare out the same window every day waiting for the view to change? Do you long for salt but wish your...

Jealousy

Her lipstick bruises your cheek again - cheap pharmacy purple, of all narcissus' blooms. In the year's twilight my hands, cold with longing, bury themselves in dead words, hoping to find love pressed, like some rare flower, between the pages. In the space between the music and lights she turns, oozing glitter, spiraling in the crush of sweat and lust. She is fool's gold, forest-fire, ice-queen; snagging drinks for the promise of a kiss never given. Outside, in the frost-stunned night, leaves are falling like hope.

Lunar Cycles

i. i was born in the capital of the country and grew used to gazes ii. madras found me shoving my hands in the pockets of my too-short shorts or so the aunties and teachers and friends’ mothers thought got pulled aside one sunny afternoon (but then most afternoons were sunny) when i was sitting by the library (the safest spot on the campus) my physics teacher asked my why i wasn’t wearing shorts under my uniformed regulation skirt and wasn’t i sending the boys the wrong idea, somehow? madras found me laughing in the face of my modern-day medusa asking her whether she thought boys staring up my skirt might already have completely the wrong idea through no encouragement of my own through no intention of mine medusa and i called an uneasy truce after that but i could feel her s...