It glitters, plays,
It makes you smile.
You waste all day,
You sit awhile.
And watch it quote
Quite quietly
Words you once spoke
Defiantly,
Before you woke
So silently.

The turquoise sea
Is far away.
The forest trees
Have naught to say,
And no disease
Can make you die
When you have dreams
Who love the sky.

A dream believes
But never wonders,
Never grieves;
It breathes, it thunders.

It turns and twirls,
And entrances
Wavering worlds,
Because it dances.

You sometimes cry
About your dreams,
Because they die
Because they seem
To bend the breeze,
And dance upon
The quiet trees,
And then they’re gone.

- Written by Anna Williams at age 21

There, the oases , their streets full of trees
And bagels and children, were life at its knees…
Where things could be bought, where no one had seen
Someone like I was, when I was eighteen.

The desert men, whose tired old eyes
Gazed with faintly veiled surprise,
Scrutinized my dim disguise
And made my memories despise
Nights I’d trembled, days I’d cried,
Tears I’d wasted, drowned inside
Years of shame and broken pride.

They gazed without mercy, their eyes breathing fire,
Dark like the gypsies of seething desire.
They followed my footsteps, they swallowed my breath,
They bathed in my shadows, entreated my death.

I met the men of paradise
Upon a sea of amber ice…
Traveling with the turning tide.
But I dared to dive inside
The fading lives, before they died.

I sat for hours and watched and heard
Every whisper, every word
Of broken, barely breathing stories,
Stained in pain and worthless glories.

In Xinjiang, I cast my eyes
Easily upon the skies,
And I tore my life apart.
I glanced within a broken heart.
I breathed upon the burning bars
And made myself a sea of stars.

Beyond the far side of the sky,
Half forgotten, faded, far,
There lies a land where shadows die…
Beyond the winds that sweep the stars.

Be it home or be it heaven,
It lies loved, or lost, forgiven.
You may recall, but though I try
I’ve music for a memory.
I only search myself and sigh.

I only wish I still were free.
I only wish I could remember
The meaning of the mystery,
The meaning of my Red November,
Who haunts and holds my history.

Beauty breathes in every glance
You care to cast on earth or sea,
And all your life becomes a dance
If you decide it ought to be.

- Written by Anna Williams at age 21

Hesitance followed me, painfully lingering
Wrapped round the dreams I was painfully fingering
Wrapped round the fire that was slowly receding
Wrapped round my life who lay painlessly bleeding.

I lived alone when I’d no one to tell.
I was my own and I built my own cell.
Harsh, stark, and dim, wherein no man could hear me -
Wherein no cry could reach me, wherein no sun could sear me.

Many men knew me, or saw, or perceived me.
Many men loved me, and fewer believed me.
Their lives were insane, their faces were tragic,
And I went on wandering, searching for magic.
The road was my heaven – fair, far, and free,
And there I imagined that I ought to be
What anyone dared to desire of me.

…Fighting with lies, bathed in goodbyes
Searching the people with angels for eyes…
One night I gazed at a star, warm and white,
And prayed to remember, and prayed to be right…
Too tired of waiting. Too tired of hating.
Too tired of watching my spirit abating.
I let my glance wander and I cast my eyes on
Some kind of magic beyond the horizon.
Some breath of freedom, of life… or of truth
Some breath of something I knew in my youth.
It lightened my heart. It strengthened my soul.
It was a reason for living – a goal.

- Written by Anna Williams at Age 19

Reddened rainbows in the sun
Meant my worlds, and yet, not one.
Shattered dreams about my feet;
Shattered dreams incomplete.

As I pondered through the mountains,
I have met the crystal fountains.
I have seen the moonlight shining.
I have watched the stars refining.
Stumbling, broken, bare of glory,
I have watched the angel’s story.
Weak and injured, cold and crying,
I have felt the joy of flying.
Running hopeless through the grasses,
I have watched as springtime passes.
Kneeling, pining, pained and frozen,
Happy fantasies were chosen.
Wishes of the seas and flowers
Overrode the burning powers.
Frozen scars draw great and nigh,
Yet believing holds us high.

Beaten, torn, however shattered,
Dreams are what, to hearts, have mattered.
To the ocean or the sky roam.
Keep within the sacred dream home.
When the stars have lost their last light,
Dreams alone will light the midnight.

- Written by Anna Williams at Age 15