Poems. Selections.
all these Youths
just so —
Confused and in love
with our bad
Habits
—Anna Balint
I tease
the idea
Of you
just like I tease
knots
Out of my hair
after days of leaving it
unbrushed.
—Anna Balint
all I had for lunch was
cigarettes
and the
Adrenaline you gave
me
last night.
—Anna Balint
I love you
From
The bottom of
My
Heart
(Which) looks
Like
The bottom of my
Bag:
Dark with decrepit
Dust
Full of stray coins
And old
Crumbs
Of stale bread.
—Anna Balint
How do I
Unhook you
From my
Heart— you’re hanging there
Like dresses caught in
the
Summer rain,
Heavy and stubborn,
Dreaming of the sun’s
Afterglow
—Anna Balint
My heart is a ruthless magnet
for trouble and
things I do not know I
want.
—Anna Balint
Skin which tasted of summer nights,
smelt of virgin air, the type
which exists only in the deep valleys of heat
between the months of July and August.
Your soul is salt water; salt water heals.
My heart heaves like the desert sands.
Look into the cup of water,
Think to myself —
The difference between love and infatuation is
hunger;
the desire to fight for the precious
invisible of a future sitting in the embryonic now,
to be shared, experienced (hope.)
Love exists differently for each one of us.
Love, the much of the little I know, is fought for.
Children playing with kites in the wind; is that all of us?
Let’s play with kites, let’s grow up in love
(I don’t really ever want to grow up)
—Anna Balint
We are
Like two
Blue moons
In the summer of July
Our wild beating hearts
Galaxies apart
—Anna Balint
Love is the Trojan
Horse of our
Lives.
Without it,
The battle
Is unsurmountable.
—Anna Balint
We all have
Our poisons;
You
— are mine.
—Anna Balint
We’ll find our
Salvation in the summer.
The pine tobacco
Smell of the forest
The sun on our skin — it’s
Warm leather.
It made its home
Atop our pores.
—Anna Balint
We’ll just
bond over
Poison,
Won’t we?
—Anna Balint
The cold ,
The cold
It grows like leaves
On
my collarbones
—Anna Balint
Encumbered
We were encumbered by the rules society had set us,
Emancipated by our emotion,
and choked by a boundlessness of a freedom which we could never pursue.
—Anna Balint
Household Chores
I remember
that my mother washed my baby
clothes and ironed
the creases
that appeared in the fabric
after the clothes dried
and recovered from the
tumbling
tumbling tumbling...
endless tumbling in the
washing machine
—Anna Balint
Paper Castles
During those days, I had small,
Tipper tapper feet,
And when I looked out the window into the gray, I was too small to imagine a world outside of that
place.
During those days, my mother was the symbol for safety,
A tall, graceful tower,
I roamed around,
Free in my cage of toys and
simplicity.
During those days,
I had a different taste
of perception,
A little bug lost in the beehive,
During those days where only objects swam in front
of my vision,
and the individual never seemed to make the whole,
When life,
Was just as big as a clementine.
—Anna Balint
Untitled 01
When I died, put crystals on my skull,
pour wine on my bones,
take me to the stars.
When I die, bury me alive,
Under silk and cotton beneath the
black sky.
When I die, stop it from raining,
for I have stopped my heart from
bleeding.
Don't follow me,
but take me home.
—Anna Balint
Untitled 01
When I died, put crystals on my skull,
pour wine on my bones,
take me to the stars.
When I die, bury me alive,
Under silk and cotton beneath the
black sky.
When I die, stop it from raining,
for I have stopped my heart from
bleeding.
Don't follow me,
but take me home.
—Anna Balint
Pixels
Little pictures fill
my mind,
like blurry pixels
Stuck in time.
—Anna Balint
Dream
When I no longer dream,
and wake up in the morning again,
when I can no longer water my dead garden,
Finally,
Not be able to kiss you goodnight,
Remember what I told you;
Do not cry when you see my picture, but rejoice that it was taken.
It sits on the drawer today,
I still see your beautiful face in the reflection of the glass.
Do not miss me,
Instead be happy you know and had me, like I had you.
Do not cry for me,
From wherever I am,
I cry for you more.
—Anna Balint
War March
1.
The dim afternoon sun sits silently on our skin,
Minutes pass by as I watch him pack,
Strong arms throwing frail clothes into a suitcase.
I watch, as my daddy, with a stern face,
Slowly packs his life a way.
5.
After the car goes off,
We are left with our heads in a cloud
of earth-smoke.
'Daddy? Daddy?'
He is gone.
—Anna Balint
Bomb Baby
Our bodies our nothing but ghosts in the wind
Our shadows
Simply the silhouettes of our burning desires,
And there is nothing now in this dead,
hollow place
to let us live.
We just drift,
As the slaves of consequence,
Barely alive, but somehow breathing.
—Anna Balint
Curl
You left the door open
The cold is coming in
It fiddles with my toes
and plays with my
Heartstrings.
—Anna Balint
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