Ann Rosen

Ann Rosen

  • Being Seen
    • Being Seen Diptychs
    • Part II, Brooklyn and Rochester
    • Part I, Brooklyn Shelters
    • Additional Information
  • News
  • Archive
    • In the Presence of Family
      • Brooklyn Portraits
      • Family Histories
      • Installed photographs
      • Book I
      • Book II
    • Los Trabajadores
      • Costa Rica
      • Guatemala
    • Artists and their Families
  • About
    • Biography and CV
    • Exhibitions
    • Bibliography
  • Contact
Statement
Formerly incarcerated Liberty House participant with handwritten poem
2025
archival digital photograph
22" x 40"

"Presently Now,

I look around and all I see is confusion

People walking around with happy faces as illusion

Their hearts filled with emotion but empty with love

Everyone’s unhappy, just calling each other’s bluff.

A battlefield, I never thought I would be

Now it’s just the war inside of me.

Backtrack

My spirit is broken, was never intact

There’s no place left in my mother’s nest

This house carries shame, the depression, the blame

The pent-up anger, the hopelessness, the helplessness

The homeless.

I am homeless in a sense I lack a place

A place to call home

Here I am again, and everything is my fault.

Back to my childhood, my haunted past

I’m sorry mom and dad, I don’t know what I did.

I don’t know what to do

Shall I apologize for the problems

I might cause in the future too?

You would say "what problems"

And I would hang my head in sadness

You never knew

You never cared, but you did.

But you never saw, you overlooked

All the times I thought about dying

Who noticed? Who cared? Who comforted me?

All the nights I spent crying

Who noticed? Who cared? Who comforted me?

Me, myself, and I, I don’t blame you.

But instead, I’ll choose

Life on this earth as I’ve come to learn

It’s a mysterious path that twists and turns

And when my path finally ends

And I choose to transcend my new path

To eternal life, it will never end."


All images copyright Ann Rosen 2025