Anderson

“Life” 
 
Life’s been weird lately 
It’s hard to put into words 
Which is odd, I can usually put out a verse  
Or two into writing, my stanza’s my friend  
I guess feelings begin wherever words end  
So I’m waiting and hoping for it to be clear  
For an arrow to point me where to go from here  
Cause I’m 20, I’m young, but that’s not enough  
To keep getting me by and not answer my whys  
To questions with meanings I can’t understand 
And embracing my youth with blood on my hands  
From wounds I can’t close, because only time can  
So I’ll wait in the weirdness and love it for now  
And hope there’s a time I’ll have figured it out 
 

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“Smoke” 
 
I see your face through cigarette smoke 
It’s not the same as I remember 
The Picasso in my mind’s eye 
Changed the way you look 
Into something I couldn’t recognize 
If I tried  
 
Rearranged and back again 
Fighting against the view I once memorized  
Every reality eventually becomes fiction 
A recount of something that doesn’t exist anymore  
If it ever did  
 
Caring is easy, indifference is hard 
Why think so much about a stranger? 
After all 
It’s what you are 
Now 
 
Infatuation blinds the mind 
Rose colored blackness filled the air 
If only I could hold my younger me 
And will her to see what was always there 
 

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“Rails” 
 
When I look at you I see 
A bed of broken bones  
Held together with tubes and wires 
That I don’t understand  
When I stay up too late 
I see early morning days 
February cold on my windshield 
A left at the sideways cone  
The light of the hallway creeping over your sleeping face  
As I slipped in the door  
And slumped my tired body  
Over the rails of your bed  
When I look at you I see  
A future that I once believed in 
A story I didn’t know would end  
I see the version of myself I created for you 
Flawed, sad, and wrong  
When I look at you I see 
The heart that I broke  
Not yours, but mine  
For believing in you 
When I look at you I see a chain 
Tying me to what has passed 
And reminding me of all that 
I wish I could forget  
A prison in my own mind 
But my only sentence is simply  
Remembering it all 

Natalie Anderson

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About the Author

Natalie Anderson is and has been a lifelong writer and lover of words. She draws inspiration from her life and interactions with those close to her, finding meaning in both the highs and the lows of the human experience.