Outsiders

Outsiders
~Annelise 2008

It is the middle of another summer
And I watch as it begins to snow.
I am not surprised by this,
The millions of wayward flakes that are swirling around
Falling toward the earth, so selfish and green.
They struggle to fly, but the heated winds blow
Them down, down, melting them into nothingness
As they are forced to hit the ground.

This is the way of the world.

Earth dwellers, they do not understand
That these are fragile gifts, lost spirits with no home,
Tiny struggling prayers going unheard,
A nuisance in the eyes of hurried human vision.
I know that I must cradle these newborn stars
To protect them from the violent sun,
This stifling almost-home into which they were thrown.
They do not belong in this prison.

I need to save the suffering ones.

I see the different lives in each snowflake,
So much deeper than the whim of a faulty atmosphere.
Heart racing, I run in twisted lines, trying to catch
Every single lonely mystery, because each one deserves to live.
I think that without me every frozen light will die, and letting one slip by,
As unforgivable as the menace of nature who placed them here.

Then I stop.
I stare into my hands, once full of suspended freedom, and see each has melted away,
Having faded sooner than if I had let them be, because of the love I had tried to give,

Because I had wanted them to stay.

I should have left them alone.
But I killed them.
I wanted to find them a home.

Act Three

Act Three
© ~Annelise Sorrell 2008

You accepted the role sight unseen.
The director saw your needs, and you needed.

Offered the part of the fool or the fooled, you grabbed on,
Though it could have been neither or both, it seemed.
He did not like to make up his mind.

And because you had no script in hand, you could not know
Where you were to go, or even who to be, in the scene.
The puppeteer bided his time, and all was perfect his way.

Is it love, or in love, you asked
Of these the lines he vacillated between.

Let it unfold, he said, just be, and we will see what comes of things.

Now understand, that if you bait the hook without promises
Then you can lure with a could-be dream.
You must always keep hope captivated, roped to the edge of her seat,
Then in front of her eyes you can prick the heart of your star
With the most brutal reality.

See? In these imaginary circumstances, you’ll have her living truthfully!

Final Notes:
When I feed you your last line
Let my words ring through your ears,
Let the remains of what could have been
Bring forth your beautiful tears.

Bravo.
Take your bow.

Fin.

Slipping

Slipping
© ~Annelise Sorrell 2008

I watch you closely, taking note of each thought that enters your brain,
Each emotion that takes hold of your heart, and I record these
From a safe distance, a detached observer.
The signs are clear to me.
You are slipping under
The surface
Again.

Do you understand
That I cannot save you?

I have seen you like this, time and time again,
From the inside of wherever that it is you go,
Taking your shallow half-breaths for you
If only to sustain you failing body
So that you can churn and turn
Your passing below the
Depths.

Do you know I think that
You cannot save yourself?

She is weary,
But unafraid.
Her ghost has taken her
Sweetly, gently,
Away away away….

Maybe this time, she will stay.

His

His
~ © Annelise Sorrell 2008

Use
Your keen vision
And inborn hunter’s sense.
Identify
The lost and vulnerable.
Attack
The one without defense.

You masked intent with deception
Upon my open face, upon my needy heart.
You dressed me perfectly for natural selection,
An easy prey without a chance to survive
Your intricately plotted and well rehearsed art.

I let you toy with me first, needling my affections
Around your lion’s hunger for a pretty kill.
I gave you my starved and sullied form
To carve and mount as you desired,
A well-suited predator to devour my will.

Seize
A lost and almost-woman.
By her lovely, empty veins.
Fill her
With your slippery lies.
Abandon
Her stained remains.

Sweet Dreams

Sweet Dreams
© ~Annelise Sorrell 2008

Late last night
I found myself lost again, wandering
Shivering, confused, dirty, and dazed,
A knife in my trembling hand
For protection or aggression,
Though either way, I was not to be saved.

The formless beast
Was stalking me, for the hundredth sleep,
Moving in, quickly now, more stealthy on it’s part,
Cursing me through my every vein,
And running it’s claim into
My willing hands, led by my failing heart.

Forced into a corner
Of the contracting maze, door after door closed,
Locking me out of every place I had or had not been,
Being left without choice, screaming, but no voice,
I felt the entity breathe it’s way into me
As I raised my steel blade, plunging it in again and again.

Late last night
I woke drenched in blood or sweat,
Lost in that place, black, outside time, inside space.
The beating heart I took was offered back to me,
With words from my host that I cannot let go:
Consume me now, for if you want to live, you must taste.

Quiet now.
It’s over.

These Remains

These Remains
© ~Annelise Sorrell 2008

We walk along together, alone in silence,
The living in hand with the dead,
Through illusion, boasting its life on earth,
And truth in mirrors which rule the head.

One early autumn, a child kills a father with words,
Shots to his heart she had loaded while blind.
The mocking face of the smoking gun remains
Lodged in stone, a monument in her graven mind.

So we swim out to sea without stopping,
Death and love towing life and regret,
Committing our crimes, and looking up to the sky
As it rains down upon us our debts.

It is not the crucifixion that we dread,
For behind clouds, the sun still insists.
It is just the fact that each day we awake,
And the trees are still skewed and amiss.

Regret.
Regret.
Regret.

And this is not near over yet.

Eternal Mind

Eternal Mind
~Annelise 2008

We live in a world of divisions,
Between flight and gravity,
In dust and eternity.

I am a host to my bodily provision,
Between virtue and depravity,
Of lust and fragility.

I must bear that otherworldly vision,
Of faithlessness and duality,
Between trust and finality.

This vitality,
One reality,
And mortality,
They
Bleed.

And so,
I close these gaps with my incisions.

While
The question,
It seems,
Is whether or not
We ever wanted
Or needed
To be.

I accept that life is not my decision.

That
Not even
The mind,
Not even
The mind,
Not even
The mind,

Can be
Free.

The danger of eternity!
See?

Resignation

Resignation
© ~Annelise Sorrell 2008

I give in
To what this is, what was,
And what cannot be.
I grab hold
Of the guilt, the regret,
The desire in me.

I move into
Withstanding of
My fate, foretold,
To the twists and shadows,
That have yet to take hold.

I follow along,
Digging and tearing
My path,
Despising truth, which unfolds,
As do gifts, like wrath.

I let go
Of what was given, was lost.
That love and this hate,
I let go
Of the ending,
Life too little. Life too late.

Once

Once
~Annelise 2008

You knew.

Follow me as I once followed you,
Smiling girl with the windblown hair.
You, speaking the language of the trees,
My god, there was life under your knees!

You heard.

I am close, as you kneel in the grass,
Laughing girl with a clover crown.
You, hearing the music in the breeze,
Purest child, knowing nothing of need.

You felt.

Cling to me, as I once clung you,
Loving girl with the sun touched skin.
You, one, with every creature on land,
There was all of life within your hands!

And then.

I witnessed my tender world transform into truth,
Ugliness of human nature, stolen youth.

And so.

A delicate woman, given over to years,
The once living girl, who cried too many tears.

I knew.

Deliverance

Deliverance
~Annelise 2008

Oh I can be a wicked woman,
A girl who feeds on rage.
This frightens and delights me,
My god, this world, my stage!

Sometimes this lust it gnaws me raw,
Sometimes I’d likely die from pleasure.
The pain, the evil, I eat them whole,
Both in equal measure.

I can fix my gaze upon a thought
Then birth it from my womb.
You who dares to cross me so,
Shall force my hand at doom.

I hate, I hate,
I hate, I hate,
The devil.
She consumes!