Buttons

Copyright © <2019> by <Gabrielle Wollert>

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: <2019>

ISBN:

<978-0-359-62536-9>

<611 Mitchell Street Apartment 1>

<Laramie>, <WY> <82o72>

BUTTONS

A Collection

Gabrielle Wollert

2019

Artist’s Statement

This book is the culmination of a year-long project

experimenting with poetry and visual art. Each poem

highlights a genre of personal experience and

encompasses an overarching theme of my personal

development and self-awareness. Genres of poetry

include self-exploration, upbringing, hardships, and

travel. I have also represented the tone of certain poems

using visual art. Working with a local artist, I used a

Strappo technique of acrylic painting to further express a

process of development. This technique requires

forethought, the main subject is painted first on glass,

and detail layers are painted in sequence after. While

each poem and piece of art represent experiences of my

life, I hope you can derive similarities and inspiration for

yourself.

ii | P a g e

Table of Contents

Self-Exploration... 1

K

NOWLEDGE

... 2

S

^NOW

... 3

S

OULS

... 4

Vapors ... 5

T

^HE

E

^MPTY

S

^PACES

... 6

Upbringing ... 7

D

UST AND

R

UST

... 8

Grease... 10

C

ORNERS OF MY

R

^OOM

... 11

W

HEN

Y

OU

L

EAVE

M

E

... 12

S

TRANGERS

... 13

Hardships ... 14

B

UTTONS

... 15

Buttons ... 16

F

ALSE

H

OPE

... 17

Radiation ... 18

A

CHE

... 19

N

AMES

... 20

S

PACES

... 21

Travel ... 22

W

ALLS

... 23

Canvas ... 24

P

^UERTO

R

^ICO

... 25

Bioluminescent ... 27

T

RAINS OF

T

HOUGHT

... 28

B

REATHE

... 29

A

DVENTURE

P

AINS

... 30

A

NCESTORS

... 31

Acknowledgments ... 32

1 | P a g e

SELF-EXPLORATION

Knowledge

An empty room inside of my mind.

They say: “your room is full and full”, but it is an illusion.

Just cardboard boxes and dusty white sheets.

A woman walks in

and the room is not empty.

She sings so sweetly

“I am home, are you here?”

“I am here” I want to scream.

Her voice echoes.

She makes couches with boxes and curtains with sheets, and decides to stay for a while.

I say: “my room is full and full”, she makes it that way.

And she hears me through neurons

and smiles.

3 | P a g e

Snow

God looks at us like we look at snow.

Crystalized, birthed in the sky swiftly and gently

falling to its death.

DNA entwined in the womb decays silently

as we labor on into oblivion.

Each DNA collapses, icy frames retract as snowflakes and bodies blanket the ground together in friendship.

The snow is melting the bodies are buried.

God looks down and smiles.

The earth is growing again.

Souls

Vapors of purple and blue

are kissed by moonlight,

they dance on clouds of cumulus-stratus.

A sea of dreams

Is unsettled by whispers, that run

and chase

and capture each other.

They echo in silence that is full of laughter.

Like the enchanting

song of souls.

5 | P a g e

Va po rs 20 19

The Empty Spaces Do you spend time looking at frames,

or boxes with rough edges?

Do you see wires on nails,

or the hallow eyes in portraits?

There are cobwebs in corners;

since janitors’ dust shelves, not walls.

And shadows of boxes make pictures more pleasing,

when placement is

better than paint.

7 | P a g e

UPBRINGING

Dust and Rust A smell that stirs and settles,

with dashes of grease and fire.

Your fingers roll over bolts and nuts and screws

and wrenches.

Familiar as the hand that holds them.

Each tool used

for its purpose, lying dormant in anticipation

for the next breakdown.

There's always another breakdown.

In the corner

an abandoned basketball hoop has thoughts of cold winter nights spent practicing with your sister.

And special times

when he would give wisdom.

He would play too.

Kind but stern.

Gentle yet tough.

His hands could tell stories.

Large enough that you wonder

how he held your hand when you were younger.

With one finger?

Calloused

and grease covered, sometimes bleeding, he'd ask you for band aids. To heal.

You loved to put

9 | P a g e

band aids on them.

To touch his stories and hope

that it would scar, so that moment would be added.

And that smell.

When time fades treasured whiles, and visits home become less, that smell

will take you back.

Even if only in your mind.

Dust and rust and grease and fire.

The smell that lingers

in the air.

G rea se 20 19

Corners of my Room Ghosts linger

in the corners of my bedroom.

One’s name is secrets, she keeps them close by.

One’s name is desperate, she likes the attention.

Another’s name is habits, she welcomes me home.

One corner is empty,

where the future haunts me.

They look down and call me.

They ask to touch my toes and cheeks and nose.

They ask to feel my

hands and hips and knees.

Because they don’t know me.

They are exoskeletons

That I peeled from my body.

11 | P a g e

Corners of My Room Ghosts linger

in the corners of my bedroom.

One’s name is secrets, she keeps them close by.

Ones name is desperate, she likes the attention.

Another’s name is habits, she welcomes me home.

One corner is empty, where the future haunts me.

They look down and call me.

They as to touch my toes and cheeks and nose.

They ask to feel my hands and hips and knees.

Because they don’t know me.

They are shadows that

I peeled from my body.

When You Leave Me

Do you watch through windows as mothers and sisters

and lovers leave?

Do you wonder about the linger of their figure

etched inside of your mind?

Tears fall and lips smile

as they disappear behind corn fields, and dusty dirt roads hills.

A pang of fear to remind of a life that is fleeting, a flicker blown out

like a candle.

Is this the last time you’ll say

I love you?

Hold back unwanted grieving.

Don’t picture them

driving away.

13 | P a g e

Strangers It is hard to mourn

someone living.

To hear voices in dreams,

and to miss them.

Then wake up and realize that they are not dead.

just out of reach and time.

You could call or text,

or watch from

the coffee shop window, but all you’ll find

are the ghosts of those

you used to know.

HARDSHIPS

15 | P a g e

Buttons I pick up glass

on the side of the road.

Hips aching from impact.

It shines in different shades

like secrets the night keeps close.

I place shards in piles along the pavement and read symbols on driver side seats.

Lights and horns and unlock signs.

I count switches while stranger hands hungry for hips grab buttons on

blue jeans and blouses.

One button I saw but never pressed.

Lips silent on impact as though

I wanted to crash.

Now, I’m left with broken glass

to sort outside of frames.

Pieced together on leather seats where I

don’t feel the same.

B u tto ns 20 19

17 | P a g e

False Hope Hope is a liar.

Light and gentle, yet tendrils of wire sharp as a needle inject you deep between tissue and bone and muscle.

It feels warm like the sun breaking winter.

But, it’s venom.

You shiver in pleasure for the morning and the evening.

Until forever passes on, and all you have is the sun burning poison inside of you, to remind you

that dreams are not real

and you are dying.

Ra d ia ti on 20 19

19 | P a g e

Ache

A mumbled prayer can cause the earth to shake.

A broken heart

will ask these bones

to ….

Names

You knew your name from visions of youth when there was not yet confusion and pain kidnapping you at 13.

You forgot yourself at that ripe age.

Not knowing the palms of your hands, what those lines could one day tell you.

You mourned the you that you thought you would be,

and believed you

were someone who did

not care about life

in their arms.

21 | P a g e

Spaces

It’s in the spaces between pauses.

Dust floating in the air.

The wisp of whiskers

when loneliness comes near.

A hollow soul that wants to linger making nests in chest cavities;

where heart beats reassure that the living

will keep breathing.

What about the pauses between beating?

One day,

the beats will fade

but the spaces

will remain.

TRAVEL

23 | P a g e

Walls

There are walls I know of in a foreign country.

Moldy and damp with a bad paint job.

Bricks are uneven and sinking in spots

and the air inside is heavy.

It smells of dark tea.

There are board game pieces

in couch cushions that appear

a few months later.

And a book waiting patiently for another pen on

its pages.

There are finger prints on coffee mugs

next to biscuits in baskets, and a few people left with unfinished hugs.

`

There’s a painting on a wall I know of, of the very walls it hangs on, and a note on the back

of hope and loss.

I wrote my name on it.

Ca n vas 20 19

25 | P a g e

Puerto Rico

6am and the world awakes to church bells with no rhythm.

My speech is unfamiliar

with the sounds we are singing.

Strange, like the woman and her tambourine.

The day is warm and heavy.

Like an iguana in the tree

who looks down on the house below, where blue tarps catch earth

under sinks.

An unconscious man, a Spanish apology. Ada Lis cries.

A catch in her throat

is heard down on the beach by an abandoned blue row boat.

A single room sailor church.

A local man and his sea horse.

Swimming freely, no ropes or men hanging on its neck.

Look at falling water

in crystal pools, can you picture hurricanes alarming the jungle?

Can you see it in the eyes?

Eyes that are calm, like Ruben’s, their voices healing yet broken.

Stars drip in bays

behind shadows, from

hands to arms and then

into the water. And a sunset

spans the entire earth.

Have you seen it before?

Or felt peace in a crowd swaying to a song you’ve never heard?

Take off your dress. Run

Into the moonlit ocean,

and swallow the feelings

you could never express.

27 | P a g e

B io lu mi nes cent 20 19

Trains of Thought A train travels

in winter

over still green pastures where sheep sleepily graze.

Heavy black bags tremble in bins, unnoticed by cards turning swiftly between hands.

There’s a pop and crackle of voices muffled

while towns blur past the line. Condensed breath drips spit on windows, and seats smell of a stranger.

Races on stones through dirty aired tunnels remind of

A lonely old city.

Lurches and screeches of rusted tracks are awakened in violent vibrations.

Hold still, eyes closed, when transported on trains

to unknown places.

29 | P a g e

Breathe

Breathe in the sea salt breeze, feel it circulate in your lungs.

Sticky and heavy, a sweet mucus that clings to atoms in the air

Taste it.

The empanadilla.

Cheese and guava melting in marriage

as syrup seeps between the seams.

The earth touches you.

Recognizing the veins on the backs of your hands.

A composted death which gives birth to life.

Touch it.

Taste it.

Breathe it.

Be it.

Adventure Pains

Reaching out my open arms, only floating atoms

fill the space between them.

I laugh with blank eyes and different voices I don’t recognize.

I call on Adventure, my friend (yet a stranger).

She doesn’t know

why my eyes don’t smile and my hugs

leave her empty.

I tried to let

her complete me,

but misplaced people

should not call themselves

found.

31 | P a g e

Ancestors All these people in small places

do they know the bones they step on?

Touch the sand and wonder if it knows a thousand years.

Did I once live as a grain of sand;

a rock transferred for a life?

Could we meet

the ghosts by our sides?

The natives that died just under our feet,

dancing with us in the alley.

They know the words

unlike me.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Diane Panozzo and Wendy

Bredehoft. Panozzo, your love for poetry and support for my creativity is the backbone of this project. Wendy, you have given me a studio, an exciting new technique, and the freedom to experiment. Without the two of you I would probably be writing papers instead of creating magic. Your dedication to education is inspiring, and I hope to carry your legacies with me wherever I end up.

Thank you.