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ANNA DUNN - POEMS

11/2/2018

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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 II

​On 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.
 
 
 

​Overboard 

​Every 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
 
 
 

​Paper

​Small 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 Japan 

​I’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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    ADITYA DESHMUKH
    ANNA DUNN
    EIRA NEEDHAM
    E. IZABELLE CASSANDRA ALEXANDER
    ERICA MICHAELS HOLLANDER
    GARY PRIEST
    HARJEET SINGH
    KEITH BURKHOLDER
    K SHESHU BABU
    LOIS GREENE STONE
    MARC CARVER
    MICHAEL WHELAN
    PETER JONES
    PHILIP O'NEIL
    RENEE B. DRUMMOND-BROWN
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