Poems by B. Körner

Oct 10, 2020

Bianca Körner (*1990) lives in Berlin and works as a freelance copywriter. At the age of 14 she published her first poems in a daily Berlin newspaper. Her most recent publications are in the Austrian literary journal “etcetera” and the German magazine “Veilchen”. She also reads her poems on stage.

Cold Hands

You always complained about my cold hands
I told you
That’s the way it needs to be, all my warmth is in my heart.
You laughed
and you took my hands in your hands
and I took your heart in mine

and we kept each other warm.

Bad Habits

Remember when we talked about our bad habits?
I said
If you’d quit smoking
maybe I could quit trying to find my own worth in the arms of strangers.
We both laughed
Knowing we’d fail miserably

Today I’m wondering if my heart has turned as black as your lungs.

After our last fight at Susan’s

After our last fight at Susan’s,
I told you again, that I’m fine, which again, I wasn’t.
And like always you knew, but couldn’t get the words out of me.
So when you found my poem that silently screamed all the words in your face
our last fight at Susan’s became our second last fight and again I am so sorry,
how my pen is always the last straw I clutch at not realizing
I’m only making waste at the party when really
I should have been drinking without it.
I still don’t know why I look for help
in the clutter and not just grab
the glass by myself.

There is a swimming pool in my parent’s garden

There is a swimming pool in my parent’s garden.
Cooling us down on heated days.
It’s not for swimming laps, but big enough to fit us all.
Us and a handful of toys.
Also the inflatable cup holder.
The boys are always the first to jump in.
The more water splashes out, the better.
And being loud is just an indication for being happy.
But me, I am not loud,
me, I am always cold.
Always taking time.
Sometimes I think about this image.
My family laughing togehter in the crystal clear water.
Me standing beside them wrapped up in a towel.
Almost like hiding from them
Almost like my family isn’t big enough to fit us all.

The evil lives in my body

The evil lives in my body
Sometimes the evil resides in my little toe
and it hurts like a pebble in my shoe.

It also gets into my legs
forces them to go slower
as if they didn’t want to arrive
as if they didn’t trust the way.

Sometimes it spreads in my thighs
and tries to tell me that I’m fat and less beautiful.
And then it sits in my lap and wants to be proven otherwise.

It often resides in my belly and there it lies heavy on my stomach.
Then I feel as if all my words are as bitter as gall and since I don’t want to spit them in your face, I have to be silent and the swallowing makes me feel sick.

The evil also resides in my chest. There it lives in my lungs and hardly lets me breathe, there it lives in my heart and hardly lets me love.

When I get too sad, the evil gets angry and sometimes the anger feels like a warm hug, but never for long.
Sometimes it’s in my arms. Then there are no sweeping gestures, the evil does not want to make me understood. It does not believe in talking to each other, only in fighting against each other. When it lives in my hands, they become fists.

Most of the time the evil lives in my head and there it speaks to me sometimes in a low, sometimes in a loud voice. It tells me

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