Young Writers Society

Desert Time

Today's Inspiration:


The soil's different in a small town. It's like the weeds take longer to grow until El Niño. Then your dirt yard is all foxtails, clover, and dandeloins.

I grew up in a desert. My friends and I joked about hopping the school fence to explore the soft sand beyond it. Hikes in the summer always meant staying away from the brush because that's where rattlesnakes slumbered. Rain always smelt like creosote bushes and dusty asphalt.

Of course, everyone wanted to leave, but people kep filing back like the rundown motels and mom-and-pop Mexican restaruants were a siren's call. My high school prinicpal left, only to come back. My best friends' parents left only to come back. My mom left only to come back.

I've left, and I hope to find myself states away.

But on windy days, when I can hear the sand hit my window, I think back to how the dust would make my legs sting during the harsh summer winds. And then I think about my school, and the cockroach infestation and the black widow in the ASB storage named Natalia. I learnt to let the water run for a while after summer break because the pipes were all rusted. The rust taste never really went away.

We weren't a close small town. The adults were Christian, traditional, steadfast. The youth was stubborn, rebellious, and counting down the days to leave. I wonder how many of them have managed to stay away. I wonder how many are scared to return.

I stradle the line between the future and my hometown, and I stop to listen to the wind. I am a deset child. There's so much sand on my scalp, my mom will have to help me wash my hair. Rocks are stuck in the scraps on my knees. Yellow clover flowers are the closest thing I have to a garden.

I am closing the door on my town that never moves and moving for it.

This is a long read, but it's worth it

Growing Pains

Today's Inspiration:


I stand at the cusp of adulthood,
trying to hold on to everything I know.
I'm told I must leave it all behind,
but my hands can't release.
I've grown to love this silver cage.

I don't know if I could.
There's been no chance to grow;
fear and I are intertwined
Maybe crossing will bring me peace,
but I hate to move on from this stage.

The stage that says the world is good,
and your nightlight keeps the night aglow.
But I can't afford to go through life blind,
so maybe it's time for this fear to cease.
I'll call it my coming of age.

Cliches and all of Their New Growth

Today's Inspiration:




hold on to the cliches,
the "over-soon's"
and "you'll be okay's"
because cliches are born from repetition
which means they were true for someone once
and the next person could be you

tomorrow will be different
maybe not better
but different
and sometimes all you need is time
to find your way to better

there is always someone out there
ready to say what you need to hear
the only thing to be afraid of
is being too afraid to hear them

pain is the body crying for help
so listen
and you will learn all you need to help

if decay births new life
you have a tomorrow after this

just hold on to cliches to get you there

All the Lies We Tell Ourselves

Today's Inspiration:


There's no such thing as love,
only lonely people making desperate promises
to appease some feral hungers
that we pretend are normal
and moral.

There's no such thing as god,
only terror of an unkind universe,
and flailing to make it manageable.
We make someone untouchable,
so we don't have to hold them accountable.

There's no such thing as you,
only the picture you painfully carved
into the small of my chest.
I knew you only from your strokes,
but those were never real.

There's no such thing as us,
only me kneeling at your feet,
calling you the lies of love and god.
You got everything you wanted from me,
and made me nothing in return.

I See Me in You

Today's Inspiration:


I see my shadow in your every curve,
in the scar on your brow,
the scowl on your lips,
the way you curl your fists against the world.

I think some people are mirror images,
but we are two mirrors facing each other,
echoing the same reflection over and over
until there's nothing left to see.

We pass our pain like salt across a table,
a biting remark,
sobbing into your shoulder,
the silent treatment.

I could never see myself with someone else.
No one else knows how to feel broken,
no one else says exactly what I want to hear
because you want to hear it too.

I pull you into a bruising kiss,
and I can feel it in my soul
because loving you is the closest
I have ever been to loving me.

The World Will End (Our Pain Along with It)

Today's Inspiration:


Will this ever end,
love or is this world a loop
of hopeless, broken
dreams about gentle rest and
snuggling into your arms?

My love, the world will
end in fire, brimstone, and
the purest of loves
the life could hope to offer.
I promise you that, darling.

Plastic and Factory Settings

Today's Inspiration:


i am mass-produced in that
i am easily broken under a small bit of
stress cracks the plastic of my
face my creator in the assembly
line up excuses for all of my
mistakes are paid for in
blood relatives can't even look me in the
eye the way my plastic is
crumbling walls suffocate my aching
soul-crushing rubber floors and sheet metal
wall in my heart until it knows how to
fight the insults of "man-made" and
ugly hearts only know how to
hurt me but you will never stop me from
winning would mean taking the plastic shards out of my
hands are shaking with the weight of my
sins are meant to be forgiven but not
this is a song between you and the
devil may find the soul responsible for this
factory settings shut down any revolt in me.

Stranger Danger

Today's Inspiration:



I don't know you anymore,
you have the voice of a stranger,
you're holding hands with danger
what were all these changes for?

You're acting like you're trapped in a war
and the only way out is down,
six feet underground.
But I'm not believing in your death cult
you dived off the edge; this is the result
I'm not staying around

Name Me Icarus (Shoot Me Down Before the Sun Does)

Today's Inspiration:


some things are never meant to take off
and I was always one of them
but against nature and god
i sprouted wings from my back
and kissed the clouds anyway

i was a wretched thing
with iridescent feathers
that sparkled every shade of starlight
and a drunken grin
that glowed brighter than the sun

life feels like a cage on the ground
but in the sky i was free
lawless and ungovernable
a creator of my own unmaking
trying to capture the love of the sun

grab a butterfly net and try to catch me
tie a kite string around my ankles
whatever you do strip me of my wings
i was never meant to learn how to soar
I was never meant to be happy

Out-of-Place Love Story

Today's Inspiration:



I've never believed in soulmates,
and I still don't know if I do,
but I do believe in working for the people you love,
and choosing them day after day.

Our tale is one for the dollar store theater.
I doubt anyone would believe it's real.
Your father didn't, your mother didn't,
we barely did when we fell into place.

Love is a special kind of insanity,
and we have done countless stupid things,
and each stupid thing brings us closer together,
laughing at who we used to be.

As chaotic as it was, baby,
there was magic in the madness.
The mania in your eyes
were like storybook constellations.

Us against the world,
us against ourselves,
us against all of our uncontrollable circumstances.

I can't call you my soulmate,
but you are my first choice,
and maybe we weren't meant to be,
but nothing like that has stopped us before.

Fight Until They Listen

Today's Inspiration:


Sometimes people don't listen
until you put up a fight.
Bleeding fists are harder to ignore
than loving hands or
laced fingers.

Keep a sharpened blade at your hip because
sometimes people don't listen,
and you have to cut open their ears
to let your screaming protests through
otherwise they'll kill you first.

They'll tell you, "you have no place here,"
and sometimes they'll even mean it.
Sometimes people don't listen
to the gold laced in your soul
and the weight of the jewels on your crown.

So pick your battles kid,
draw all of your dream lines in the sand.
You're the one holding the sword.
Sometimes people don't listen,
but you have the power to make them.

Stand at the gates of hell,
homd your arms open wide,
make the devil tremble with your war cry.
Never stop fighting even when
sometimes people don't listen.

Haters gonna hate
But it ain’t gonna hurt me
Because I’m too cool