smoke & starlight

© 2018 anna graham

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rolling thunder | a. graham

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pretty is a word that belongs to girls with bright smiles and locks golden like the sun and skin pale like the moon and the universe in their eyes. who could swallow the sun and nobody would even blink. pretty fits in the dimples that curve in the side of her cheek. pretty belongs to the magic of midday, a warm hand curling around your wrist and a fluttering pulse.

beautiful is a word that belongs to girls with hair in choppy bits and lips that rarely quirk up and anxiety that bubbles up behind their throat. beauty is etched into her ebony skin, her long nose, her acne scars. we whisper secrets into the curls of her hair, and it’s like the world stops when she laughs. beauty is the muscles in her arms, flexing as she pumps her wheelchair.

loveliness is a word traced in elegant lines over plump legs, a lingering mark on the side of her glasses. it’s the ambition in her eyes, what would make you gladly be another brick if only so that she can make her castle. loveliness is for princesses, queens, visionaries, stars, girls, girls, girls.

- girls | a. graham

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- anna graham

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november is autumn’s rattling breath desperately trying to hold onto a life it knows it can’t keep

november | a. graham ( #1 of months, years, days )

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What do you use to get your writing as a pic with the white background? Its so aesthetic TM

oh haha thank you!!! i just use photoshop :’) 

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How old are you?

1,000,000 years old

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heaven itself is lost in your smile, but i still can’t find my way out of hell.

i don’t need you ( a. graham ) 

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you once called me a river - rushing and hurtling over itself like the ocean contained, untamed, bleeding salt and sorrow. they once called you an earthquake - ground-splitting, dividing up the jagged corners of the world like it belonged to you. we were once called a waterfall, shattering the earth in a rush of roiling tides, until our voices echoed water and our hearts were buried in the sand.

forces of nature ( a. graham )

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a dream dangles:     - the sun, flickering rays     - wings, gleaming     - the sea, salt-spitting a dream laughs:     - the sun smiles, bright and bitter. he reaches down a bit more.     - wings flutter, an angel returning to the heavens.     - the sea boils, thundering over itself. a dream flies:     - the sun burns – wantingwantingwanting is a white hot, searing             and scorching with blind eyes.     - wings feather, gold edging into the light, blistering into ichor.     - the sea calms itself, hissing with mortal’s touch. a dream falls:     - the sun recoils, a twisted mess of a god remaining.     - wings scar & singe, a boy desperately grappling onto the edges of           freedom.     - the sea waits.

the sun, the sea, & the once-dream ( a. graham ) 

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I. i am a volcano-red, the rusting-quiet of blood, an ocean breaking into nothing. molten cracks race and swoop and the ocean falls and falls and falls until nothing is left but lava,  spilling into the crevices of my soul. II.  i am a dark-dark blue, the secrets that midnight cradles to its chest, stars fading out into nothingnothingnothing. i am the dead of the night, a stone with crumbling edges -  a cliff’s edge, ready to fall. III. i am grey, the smell of rain faded away. i am  a memory stitched together in bits and pieces, heavy gaps bleeding.  i am the dawn as it will never be, covered by clouds, a heavy blanket drowning the sun’s rays. IV. i am colours chasing colours convincing colours that they can piece me whole.  but eventually, they sputter out, and the whole world fades into black.

a light spectrum ( a graham. )

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a crimson poppy field; the red flushes through your fingers and you grin a scarlet smile, innocent, plump, lips overshadowing your gleaming shark teeth. the ground swallows you whole, oh, persephone. sweet persephone, with your tumbling black curls and red, red, lips. ( - everybody should have seen it, seen the blush that stained your lips, the scarlet that tugged through your teeth and tongue and smile, leaving it beaten and bloody - ) oh sweet persephone, you are a queen. hands painted with pomegranate, trembling with a quiver that can come only with fear - it’s alright, sweet persephone. you can sleep with the poppies, fields of red rumpled for years, a blanket to hide you. but here’s a secret: your crown is fashioned of the dead, ghosts haunted in your eyes. your hands are stained with blood, blackened in circles. your hands are trembling, not with terror, but with the power you hold. ( - sweet persephone, what are we going to do with you? - )

FIELDS OF POPPIES // a. graham

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if i am icarus, you are the sun.

FALLING, FALLING, FALLING, R.P

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they call her the sun. not because she is warm & kind, but because she gives and gives until she collapses into herself and everyone topples down with her.

BLACK HOLES, R.P

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hi there! I was wondering if it was okay to tag you in one of my poems? (sorry I'm a little shy about this? not sure about etiquette on the poetry side of tumblr!)

yes of course!!