Annie

Cigarette smoke and paper blunts,

White t-shirts and coffee stains, 

Baby is what he calls her,

But Annie is her name. 

 

Blue eyes watch as embers burn, 

How life had got away, 

From all the things she’d once dreamt, 

Annie could never say. 

 

Nicotine-stained fingertips, 

Had once strummed a heavy tune, 

But now she rolls another spliff, 

And smokes away the gloom. 

 

She had longed for fame and fortune, 

But now she just wants peace,

Instead, she lives with Tommy 

In the belly of the beast. 

 

He doesn’t like her playing, 

The chords within her head, 

He says she doesn’t need the music, 

And to sit with him instead. 

 

He’s takes away her freedom, 

Replaces it with fear, 

Fame no longer attainable, 

Without her music near.

 

Light another cigarette, 

Watch the ashes fall, 

Annie can’t hear the music, 

With her back against the wall.  

 

 

By: T.J. Ruberto 2021