 Anna Dunn is a 21 year old undergraduate student studying creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. She recently completed a trip around the world, and hopes to keep traveling in the future. Her poetry has been published in places such as Right Hand Pointing and 805 Lit. trash, 2018 january 16th, 2018 is dead i’m out here stumbling over the date line i’d love to laugh at the construction of time but January 16th is not Your birthday soon You’ll blow out my flame smoke billowing through trembling fingers that now know better than to try and catch something already gone just like the day just like the sun just like the water i’m sailing on no escape when you drown the ocean itself in your used plastic people while the littered earth keeps revolving around You and only You thrusting me from west to east i wish i wasn’t caught in Your orbit january 16th, 2018 is dead but this plastic heart still loves You floating, never disintegrating always wondering where smoke goes when it escapes into the atmosphere Equator IIOn the other side of the world a new sky rests above rough waters stars paint the sea in patterns never seen I could map out constellations on my skin finally understanding the geography of myself here and away at the same time stomach churning with the sea never missing what once was Letting the ship thrust me across the equator where I rip my skin off at the center of the earth Entire being floating into new heights Back curved limbs cascaded downward Closer to the to the sun than ever before Never to be an Icarus only a phoenix setting fire rising from the ashes spreading them across the ocean to be blown back into the stars where I was built. OverboardEvery time someone asks how was it I get seasick I could throw up the entire ocean in the island of my living room surrounded by family they know the memory of me I’m marooned. I’m worried I’ll drown in this house not mine anymore my body bubbling to the surface in a horrific display of peaking too young to understand how to ride a downhill slope a hometown is no place for a wanderer It’s not easy to comprehend how miles travelled can put wrinkles on your face only to come back to this old place breathing stars back into the atmosphere through an old pipe galactic smoke rising in the form of memories having to worry about scurvy struggling with cabin fever bowing to the vastness of the sea Anxieties sang to a bloody end as song erupted from friends they’re wanderers too we gave each other water and sun and watched flower petals bloom between laugh lines Our veins sewn together each mile a stitch they ripped at the seams when we disembarked PaperSmall rejections Are little papercuts Scratching at the skin So quiet but When amplified Explosive Bloody nails on chalkboard Screaming you’re tar not stardust That nobody even looks twice At someone who’s cat got her tongue Way back when she was young And it’s never growing back Never growing beautiful Never blossoming with the springtime Instead you’re a flower wilting Petals collapsing A puzzle with missing pieces Thrown into the garbage disposal Never to be caressed With satisfied fingertips Thoughts While Sailing to JapanI’m going to collapse on Japanese soil upon arrival
Blessing a ground that doesn’t rock Where I never cause cabin fever just by opening my eyes dreaming of finally receiving apologies that will never come as I will never come home like I was when I left like I was when i was left to put every one of my cells under a microscope this ship is rocking my samples are shattering until I’m howling with the sea breeze wondering if I’m here because I’m running like polluted water never drinkable but people drink from it anyways because they have nothing else to sustain them
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