Young Writers Society

Here's a new #monthlymusings poem ~ (it's actually a sort of recycled version of a previous october poem I wrote, but it has a new shiny gif and a new shiny song-version!) I've written songs for several of my month-personifications, but usually by the time I'm ready to share them, we're months past their intended time frame. Hope you enjoy! #alliyahpoets

october: song link

~ #monthlymusings #alliyahpoets

Autumn is pushing into my home before I have a chance to tell her she's early, and the sun hasn't arrived yet and won't for several hours. She does not care. She has laid out her collection of dried flowers, and acorns, and chirping crickets in an uneven row across my doormat and asks where I would like her to leave her storm-songs? I tell her I am not interested in buying anything today, not a girl-scout cookie, not a popcorn-ball, not a hurricane, and no I'm not nostalgic enough to start a fire or to turn on the heat in my apartment before October. She doesn't take no for an answer though. And against my better judgement, we are soon conversing like the old-friends we are, willing to overlook the mess, and overly comfortable with each-other's bad habits because we share them. With legs folded in on couch cushions, and mugs of tea at our palms, we will gossip into the moonlight-hours about the way Winter is always flirting with the trees, telling stories about how the Summer's been long and scarce, how we're scared of how fast time seems to move and take and take and take and how we're both ready for a season of hoarding everything we can hold.

monthly musings #monthlymusings #alliyahpoets #recycling

My monthly musing chapbook draft has around 44 out of 48 poems right now (exciting!) - the month that is mysteriously missing? december! my birth-month! I have almost a dozen poems about august though - some months just lend themselves more to poetry I guess. So you might be getting some wintry poems on my wall? Stay tuned ~

the hardest month to write about is december

i have a horrible habit of leaving books unfinished,
i act like this is unintentional
as the mountain of endings litter my shelves
until every magazine, cookbook, wish-list & diary-entry
becomes dog-eared,
but the truth is i have always been this way
i hate to see things through –
because the unknowing somehow seems safer than the alternatives
& so i will write you a thousand poems about august,
until the ink runs dry, & every hour recorded,
& i will tell you stories of may, while the harvest-fields flood,
& let november sing all year long about her leaves,
but i never know what to say about december,
& i'll pretend she doesn't exist until
the snow is gone -
& the earth has spun,
& the sun has returned,
once more.

monthly musings #monthlymusings #alliyahpoets #recycling

august was already gone before july told you she was leaving

august's last breath leaves fireflies dancing across my skin; boasting their impermanence with a flash of light - as if to say, they know, i'm always falling in love with fireworks, & dandelion feathers, & always leaving myself in these ghost-steps; a pace-away every day, until i can not see the sky; until i've left before they're already gone.

one day i suppose, i will latch my bones to something more rooted down than all this driftwood - but for now, it is summer - and i am afraid, i'm only here today with the fireflies, and gone tomorrow with the sand that stirs away from the ocean tide.

~~~

old poetry + new poetry #monthlymusings


july is careening off the severed edge of the summer
and i haven't had a chance to tell her what i really meant
when i said that "maybe one day, we could fly"
i'm worried she may have believed me -
but i'm more worried that i don't believe myself.

july has been so filled up with wildfire smoke
that i think i've forgotten what the sky looks like,
and so have grown accustomed to searching the ground
for fallen stars, and hoping that the birds don't forget
how to sing - because sometimes when you hold your breath
too long your lungs become used to being hollow
and your ribs become gills, and your dreams become fish.

july keeps making excuses for the weather -
that tomorrow will be brighter, that the heat is only in the air,
that the rain could be worse, or the wind more bitter,
but i really don't mind. all i want is to hold the sun
long enough for these flowers to bloom,
and the flood-lands to dry, if only
the sky could let me hold the sun
long enough to remember what fire feels like.

Merry Christmas Eve, YWS! Here's a poem I wrote this morning. #alliyahpoets #writingpoetry

"The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us ... and we beheld his glory the glory as of the only begotten of the Father" - John 1:14

hope everyone who celebrates experiences Christ's light and joy. Christmas always feels a little bittersweet for me since I do not get to celebrate it with my family, and very much wish I could, but I know I'm not alone and it is truly okay if Christmas is not ~holly jolly / excessively merry ~ because the true joy of Christ is something different than happiness amidst present circumstances; but is the confidence in the day to come and God's promises which can not be taken away. God loves you! And for what it's worth I am wishing you all joy and peace.

Here's my summer poetry series! these were fun to make and try to link the poems together - I tried to be a bit more inventive with my formatting too, which is always fun! Hope you enjoy! #monthlymusings #alliyahpoets

summer's last breath
attempting the futile task to cross 800+ miles on land, & then on sea, & then by poetry
If the entire sun burned out of the sky (when) would you know?
Summer Bucket List

If you want to read some fabulous summer poems definitely check out what people wrote for the Summer Poetry Contest there are some wonderfully poetic gems in there and each series took the prompts in such unique directions too.

I think I may have not posted a #monthlymusings in March / April / May though some of those things ended up in my napo thread. <.< whoops! Well I'll catch back up here! I started doing the gif-poems in June 2021 so we've come full circle now. :] #alliyahpoets

march
march is indecisively uncommitted
and trying to find a good way
to tell you winter's over and it's time
for the both of us to see different people.
and for some reason every time the
conversation starts, we get interrupted
by the sun undeciding when the day
is going to start or end. so i set my clock
an hour ahead and hope for the best
even when i see spring is going to be late,
and no one knows where the sun went.

it must be april
not summer,
and surely not spring. Not debating a hello while looking
straight at my shoes - surely not.
'what a silly thing to be afraid of' my mother used to say
about the deep-side of hotel swimming pools; but i hate the way
i can see a dirty quarter sunken against the concrete
seven feet deep and i'm more afraid of letting her down
so i jump and drown. yes, absolutely silly.
poem continued

may


and all at once everything's new
may demands unashamedly to be known; written down -
if not in words, then springing forth unkempt weeds from sidewalk
cracks and howling at the newborn gosling loud enough
for the neighbors to wonder what's going on and borrowing
your favorite floral blouse, without asking first, the moment
you take it out of winter storage and breaking sunbeams
through your window blinds to tell you she's coming over,
whether or not you're ready at this hour for company and
some might call her raucous-joy presumptuous, but
there's something about her that makes me happy to be alive.

seasons
may is
new,
& green,
& seems still
to be living
& that at least
counts for something
i suppose
in midst of all of life's
garden-tending,
time is reborn.

Proof that @alliyah is a genius. #arcimitation

alliyah wrote:Hey Arc, I tried to channel my inner tipsy-poet and came up with this! #imitateme #socialmonth



#alliyahpoets 1/1

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Hey Arc, I tried to channel my inner tipsy-poet and came up with this! #imitateme #socialmonth



#alliyahpoets 1/1

Here's some #chickenpoetry !! I decided to try a re-write of my first chicken-shape poem from 2019 and here's what I came up with. Enjoy! #chickens #alliyahpoets

Some November poetry with some more gif poetry too for #monthlymusings #writingpoetry #alliyahpoets
And after editing this post like 4 times, just putting the gif part under a spoiler because it felt a little distracting to me. (cw: surgical language, drowning)

we're probably too far into december for this
i only miss november in hindsight,
because i never believe snow can be bitter
when it's only a forecast for tomorrow.

you can't spend your whole year brooding about autumn
it seems silly to say it,
but when i heard the news, i wasn't jealous
but the first thing that occurred to me
was to wonder what your half of our memories look like,
are they warmed or uneven, or just worn like mine
from too much time spent carefully
unknotting grafts that didn't heal right
and smoothing out that severed edge of regret,
or did you manage to pack everything into some jar by now
to keep all those loose ends contained in storage,
i suppose that's one of those things we never ask,
never can, never should, only let more time pass
while all the sand sifts out of old wounds
and wonder, until
we both manage to forget.

only stories
november tries to tell me
stories about hurricanes
but i know she doesn't have
that sort of power; all fallen
leaves and wishing wind here
nothing to fear, so i ignore
her warnings and dive
straight into the autumn lake
i consider becoming a fish
so that i don't have to re-emerge
for air, but my lungs always
fail me right before i drown,
they tell me to breathe again.

Here's some October poetry & another gif poem for #monthlymusings I'm putting all these in one giant document and realize that I have almost 50 month-based poems now; including 1 that was even published. :] I'm enjoying seeing what themes I thought went with October this year versus last year and also which months I somehow have almost nothing written for versus the ones that I have a lot for. ~ #writingpoetry #alliyahpoets

october | gathering



october | uncommitted

october told me she was done with him,
done with summer, and wasn't looking back,
too many long days, and sun-burnt promises
lost in the tide, so she's setting her sights
for something better, she says this every year,
and i'd almost believe her
when the leaves fall soft, and the northern wind
stirs in songs around the trees, but
i catch her looking longingly at the sun
each morning when the frost gathers on her windshield,
and i see her pause as her breath catches
hanging in the winter-chilled air,
and i know she's still holding too many
corn stalks and overgrown vines tight in her arms
to tell the sky to snow.

Lots of September poetry thoughts~ #monthlymusings #writingpoetry #alliyahpoets

september | gone

september's burdens
september seems to carry
an infinite number of cardboard boxes
that she never has time to unpack,
just winter clothes in case i need them, she says,
stacking all these optimistic weather predictions
on top of her chest until her lungs are heavy,
just memories of another season
she wants to keep on hand.

september | waiting
september is jealous of october,
but she won't let her know,
she'll just stare enviously at the promise of falling leaves
& brisk mornings, & warm soups, & harvest songs
until the temperature changes.

september | leaving
september was swept up by october's gale
before she even had her feet on the ground;
all the corn rows were grown uneven,
& the trees broken by storm winds
& the sky cracked with lightning.

& then one day september was gone,
leaving only a rattled shadow
where the wind howls,
& all of autumn burdens in.

you could ask where she's went,
but summer's farewell
is notoriously unreliable,
& some trails aren't meant to be followed.

August is a very moody month, so I've got 5 poems for #monthlymusings ~ I took the photo for the gif poem part. #writingpoetry #alliyahpoets



august | holding
august is always saying goodbye
and overpromising all her see you soons
while holding tight all the spare edges of summer
like a bouquet of floral stems with petals long-wilted,
she knows summer is further away every year,
that hellos are fewer, and never a given,
so she holds promises tight,
and false-ones even tighter.

august always overstays | one day too long
august is homesick before she's out of the driveway
but grimacing a smile in the rearview window,
for her mother's sake, because it's better if we pretend
we'll be home again this evening for dinner,
so she always pretends. & knows to count
exactly how many days & steps & breaths
it will take to return.

august | almost
august leaves with {almost} the whole universe
strapped to her back; the hoarse cicadas, the dead grass,
the dreams of may & the grocery lists from june,
all packed tight in Rubbermaid containers
& double-taped for she knows the journey is long,
& anything that falls will be stolen by the hitchhikers,
august loves no strangers, so we must pretend we belong
& not let the miles make us forget the things left behind.

august | keeping
august keeps an inventory of everything that didn't fit
in her suitcase, & grieves every drop of rain that forgot
to fall, you'll find her writing love letters to summer
four months from now, with her lists in her hands
& a well-worn rain gauge latched to her heart.

august | new seasons
august leapt from her nest, wings unfurled, still sleep-dreaming
'she's going somewhere new' the clouds inform the sun,
the sun nods knowingly, 'we've been waiting all summer long,'
you couldn't convince her the summer is a season,
because waiting always feels longer,
& this year's drought has stretched everyone's patience,
august flies quick though, wings unburdened
& even half-asleep she's ready for tomorrow.

two july poems for #monthlymusings - I probably won't keep doing gif poems for these, but they're interesting to try out and I thought the visuals worked with the subjects too. #writingpoetry #alliyahpoets

july | afterthoughts





july | not quite yet
july is a bruise that i wonder
if another year has healed
only to find with these
searching memory fingers
there's always too much
here to quite forget.

*soft screm*

alliyah wrote:been a while since I posted a poetry monthly musing; so let's see if this gif thing actually works -- #monthlymusings #writingpoetry #alliyahpoets
june | soon

Spoiler! :

june counts her days
anxious-quick on her fingers;
afraid she'll lose one if she doesn't count,
the birds and the new floral leaves
help her keep track of things-
and somewhere the fish are singing;
hum hum, one two, come home, three four,
bubble away the day, and one day more,
and all this day-counting becomes
synonymous with breathing
and every breath is hoping
she'll find the river soon.

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been a while since I posted a poetry monthly musing; so let's see if this gif thing actually works -- #monthlymusings #writingpoetry #alliyahpoets
june | soon

more poetry -- #monthlymusings #writingpoetry #alliyahpoets