Take me away
To your far away land,
Buried like dust
In the prints of your hand,

Where your smile doesn’t crack,
And fade,
Before the hours
Draw into days.

I lay in the bed
Of a perfect stranger.
I played with his words,
Mimicking danger,

And he begged me to tell him
My endless verses,
Beneath the morning’s
Sleepless curses.

His fingers played
With the curve of my side.
I told him of
The day I died ―

A secret I guarded
So closely from you.
I told him the truth.
I told no one I knew.

Written by Anna Williams at Age 17
Washington, D.C.

Young and strong and free at last
From pain. And growing far too fast,
Yet not too young to have a past.
I never speak about it here
I seldom voice a hidden fear
Or whisper to the quiet stars
Or weep for all that beauty mars
Or whistle by the amber mountains,
In search of purple salt-less fountains.
Listen far across the hills
And barefoot by the mountain rills
For a faint and distant sigh.
Torn by time, and death. And lies.
If you glance within your heart
You may tear your life apart.
You may justify your sin …
Search for angel dust within.
It may kill. It may heal.
The treasures of the sky grow real.
Break away mid earth and fire.
Give to glory’s deep desire.
In the frail moments of youth,
Every lie breathes unwashed truth.
Naught matters past reality,
Hard, correct and fancy-free.
You can sing false pleasure’s hue.
You can pierce me through and through.
Draw a blood drop from my eye,
Make me love you, make me cry …
Still I remain, as light friends tend,
Yet the same, unscathed, unbent,
But hardened for the next hard mile,
To the next unfamiliar smile,
And trust it not, as children would.
Though, God knows, how I wish I could.

For I am taught. And taught by thee.
Enlightened in reality.
With little left to do but pray
For the dim and distant day
When naught is yearned or questioned why
But the clouds who roam the sky.

- Written by Anna Williams at Age 17
Prague, Czechoslovakia

I left, the day you disappeared,
To the mountains, sharp and sheer,
Where the air was cold and clear…
I thought I’d lost you; thought you’d gone.

I recall I heard a sound,
You said my name, I turned around,
Long ago, the night you found me,
When you came to Tashkurgan.

I wrapped myself in your embrace,
And while you slept, I watched your face,
Wondering if this was the place
Where I could stay. Where I’d belong.

I recall the night I cried
Because the people said you lied,
And the quiet way you tried
To tell me that it wasn’t true;

And in Gulmit, I spoke coldly.
I recall the things you told me.
That night you only came to hold me,
But I was afraid of you.

Days went by, the sky grew white,
You came to me no more at night,
I could not smile, I could not write.
Flames of pain within me burned.

I swore I would drown the embers.
I swore I would not remember.
And I left you, in December.
I swore I would not return.

I recall the things you said.
Your voice was harsh. Your heart was dead.
Songs of sadness filled my head,
And again I was alone.

Years have passed. I feel the same.
I recall the night you came
To Tashkurgan and said my name,
Long before you turned to stone.

In a distant desert town,
I sat on the dusty ground.
I was happy, till you found me,
And my eyes were bright and blue.

When my heart is filled with thunder
In the night, I sometimes wonder
How you tore my world asunder
…Why I still remember you.

Now I read these words you write,
And I lie awake at night,
Wondering if I ever might
Travel back to Tashkurgan.

I recall the day it started,
And the silent way we parted.
I swore I was not broken-hearted -
I imagine I was wrong.

- Written by Anna Williams at Age 22

The bays
Of salty waters
Mark our days;
By the ripples,
By the tides.

We come forth limping,
― Leave in strides.

And the heat lays
Like a hound.
The children know
The crooked sounds
Of serpents, lurking like disease
By the banks
Beyond the trees.
There is the dark and endless sea.
There are spirits watching me.

This land robs comfort,
Seethes defeat.
It maims and strengthens,
By the heat
― The heat of hate, the heat of guilt …
The day I learned that flowers wilt,
I burst and shook,
And cursed the sky.
My feelings died.
I knew not why.

Now we spread no hell, no rain.
Now we live here, free from pain
And stronger, by neutrality –
It shapes our immortality.

None can touch us,
Strike us,
Love us.
None can break
The spell above us.
… None can ever set us free.
We are surrounded by the sea.

- Written by Anna Williams at Age 17

It had been hated. Degraded.
Hardly heart-defying. Shaded.
Hard warmth. For a moment’s pleasure.
Mindless. Careless. Lady’s leisure.
And yet the strongest of the weak
Can break in sobs and fade grow meek.
None can tell you your belief.
None may soothe you in your grief.
None can tell you where to go.
None but you can ever know.
When you learn that, when you see,
It may break your heart in three.
Yet ’tis not bad to dance alone.
May your eyes remain your own.

- Written by Anna Williams at age 17
in Prague, Czechoslovakia

Time goes, numbed in drink and dawn.
The winter people lived the song.
We danced like beetles under fire,
Drawn to beauty and desire.
We followed laughter where it led,
Into smoke, and sin, and bed.

We were children. Actors. Fools.
Playing by our coldest rules.
How heartless were our childish trials
Steeped in dances and denials.
We yearned to break away and roam,
We who have or love no home.
Here to destroy ourselves. Here to alloy ourselves.
Only to tear and to teach and annoy ourselves.

The children of the shadows flew,
Knew not what we loved, but loved what we knew.
Shadows of alleys. Shadows of smiles.
The sounds of the shadows fade over miles.
We had been beaten, been married, been robbed.
We came to sing in the streets for the mob.
To forget, to forsake, to invent our own past,
We came with the wind, the cold dry blast.
By blue skies we parted, in shadows of spring.
Escaping the pain that the painlessness brings.

Written by Anna Williams at Age 17
Monday after Easter
in Prague, Czechoslovakia

- Written by Anna Williams at age 17
in Prague, Czechoslovakia

The bays
Of salty waters
Mark our days;
By the ripples,
By the tides.

We come forth limping,
― Leave in strides.

And the heat lays
Like a hound.
The children know
The crooked sounds
Of serpents, lurking like disease
By the banks
Beyond the trees.
There is the dark and endless sea.
There are spirits watching me.

This land robs comfort,
Seethes defeat.
It maims and strengthens,
By the heat
― The heat of hate, the heat of guilt …
The day I learned that flowers wilt,
I burst and shook,
And cursed the sky.
My feelings died.
I knew not why.

Now we spread no hell, no rain.
Now we live here, free from pain
And stronger, by neutrality –
It shapes our immortality.

None can touch us,
Strike us,
Love us.
None can break
The spell above us.
… None can ever set us free.
We are surrounded by the sea.

- Written by Anna Williams at Age 17

Like a blossom in the frost
That dies in heartache and is lost
Despairing it will never be
Young again; will never see
The moonlit dewdrop’s quiet birth
And fades to cold, black, callous earth…
I hungered no more for the stars.
I raised myself against the bars,
And shut away each desperate scheme.
A dream no longer was a dream.
Standing by the barren isle,
There was a lie behind my smile.
The mountain storm could touch me not
And not the sea. For I had sought,
And I had failed. And I had hated
Every hope my heart created.

By the strength my eyes beguiled,
I grew old when still a child.
And so I sank, forgot, and sighed
But for whispers, deep inside;
But for wishes to return.
And yet the dread to fail, to burn,
Overpowered dying love.
With one last frantic glance above,
I longed that I might live once more,
To suffer truth, as long before.

Desperate prayer in the sand…
I reached out my quivering hand,
And felt the blue light of the sky
The moon’s cold breath fell to my eye,
And as the summer winds wash tears,
A memory washed away my fears.

Beating heart and burning breath,
Love reawakened from the death,
Shivering flesh against the night
Awakened to a dying light

A quiet child sleeps peacefully,
Somewhere deep inside of me,
Who knew her love and knew her name;
Spoke no hatred, felt no shame;
Who knew a true, unbroken mirror,
Bore no secret, hid no tear.
She laughed upon a starlit beam,
Without fear and without scheme,
Seldom hid herself from pain,
And never shuttered in the rain.
Subtle age tears at the young.
Songs are withered and resung.

After a day or a million years
Of soft oblivion and fears,
Of quiet panic, bursting sin,
Silent fight raged deep within,
Hearts are crushed and are reborn
From the blood upon the thorn.

- Written by Anna Williams at age 16

- Written by Anna Williams at age 18
in Gilgit, Pakistan