Young Writers Society

(n.) the finest piece of thread; a spider's silk woven into your skin and latticed over the cuts on your legs. this is what i hope to be. to be gossamer is to have a light touch, to tap on one's shoulder and fail to get their attention, so you just walk away.

just walk away.

This is my LMS III space to talk mostly for my poetry and everything of that sort, but I'll probably use this to talk about my novel that I'll be attempting to work on as well as an unofficial warrior? Though I may end up making a different thread for that--probably not. So now you know what's going to go on here.

I have two potential novels that I have to choose from before LMS happens to start but I'm most likely going with the first one due to it being outlined more, though I may choose the second idea out of impulse. I'm not sharing anything quite yet since I'm indecisive myself, though if anyone wants to hear them, I can go ahead and sum them up. Poetry is something that's definite here since I'm a Bard.

wouldn't that be nice?

maybe we could dance underneath
the streetlights.
we could pretend that they're our stars. we could pretend
that they aren't so distant after all. like the stars
we plastered to our ceilings, tattered and ragged
since childhood. i could tell you about how
people are a lot like their shadows. how from afar
they look like demons with three heads and six arms.
and how their physique is blurry,
until you get a little bit closer and you realize
those hands are the same as yours. our faces only shone
by the moonlight that stretches across your lawn.
in a waltz of summer, the fireflies would hover above the grass,
their gentle glow wavering.
i would let you step on my toes. i just think it's beautiful
how you tuck your hair behind your glasses. how your arms
get lost in that sweatshirt of yours.
we could fall asleep from fatigue
and wake to the sunshine.
wouldn't that be nice?

This is rather unedited so the quality of this probably isn't all that great, but here it is! It kind of just came out, really. I ditched the idea of writing prose or stories for LMS so now I'm just doing what I signed up officially for, and that's being a Bard. I may end up editing this, and thoughts on it are definitely appreciated!

ceramics

you taught me ceramics. how to
improvise. how to slip and score
my limbs back together when they are
starting to slip. i made gashes in your skin,
tally marks running through each other
and intersecting like roads.
you taught me how to wedge the bubbles
out of your skin. you told me to make
the letter 'v' with my hands, and i told you
i didn't know how. you showed me,
curling your thumbs into your palms
and pressed down on my shoulder-blades.

you asked if i wanted to reenact that scene
from ghost, and i said okay.
you sat behind me,
interlaced your fingers with mine
as if they were the ragged and tattered shoelaces
that rest on your feet.
i told you how our hearts were like clay
not yet put in the kiln
as our bodies faced the potter's wheel.
changed and imprinted
by a single touch. i told you
how it's almost scary--how fragile we are.

you dipped your hands into a bowl of water,
letting droplets drip from your fingertips
onto the soon-to-be pot. when it was looking like
it was about to concave, you did not let it go.
i winced and looked away from the hours
i could have destroyed and wasted away,
but you did not blink once. your hands were frantic,
pulling from places to fill in others.
you knew the word distribution
like you knew the back of your hand--
you acted like you knew, but really
you didn't have any more of a clue than me,
but who says that?

'it's okay,' you said,
and i believed every word you said.
like baby birds taking in the worms
regurgitated by their mother. i learned
how dangerous these hands of mine can be.
we were fragile and prone to breaking
at any given moment, but we didn't.
you did not give up on me. you did not
shut me out by squeezing your eyes shut
and covering your ears. but more than anything else,
i learned that cracks can become fissures
in the blink of an eye.

Well, here it is. It's in its first draft this time around and I'm not that big of a fan of it, but it worked for what it was, I suppose. I'd like to hear your thoughts on it! I posted a poem recently, but that didn't have anything to due with my LMS since it had been written before LMS and I was revising that, if anyone was confused why that wasn't my poem for the week. Anyway, here it is.

windowpane


there is a vacant spot
in my driveway where your car
used to reside. cinderblocks that you
backpetaled into so you knew
when to stop. you never learned,
proven by the skid marks
left on the gravel. at midnight
i crouch down on the ground
writing words into the gravel
with a single finger. dust
finding its way into nails
that have been chewed
until they cannot be chewed--
a bad habit. my fingertips are eroded at,
the weather has been rather relentless
lately. you were one of those 1000-piece puzzles,
i couldn't figure you out, but my brother
seemed to know you like the back of his hand.
there is a vacant spot
in my driveway where your car
used to reside that i stare out at,
thinking that it might change something.

I'm going to go ahead and try and edit through this because I do actually want to post this one, but I'm too tired right now and posting my LMS submission is the only reason why I decided to wake myself up.

bloom


the hairs that marked the end of adolescence
began to sprout on your skin.
a garden matured over the most bitter of winters,
the most lukewarm of spring mornings.
someday, you won't have to stand at the bus stop,
feeling as if you don't have a destination, singing laments
that would never be more than your hushed whispers.
snowflakes parachuting to their deaths, plummeting to the ground
and filling the empty cracks of the sidewalk.
the wind is relentless,
blades cutting through the exterior
of your skin.
you won't have to digest the pages of the textbooks
that cost you more than what lay
in your pockets.
the dew that rests on the grass
is finally starting to melt.
spring comes after the darkest of winters
and at one point, you and i,
we'll be in bloom again.
the ripest of fruits,
dangling from the richest of trees.
innocent until proven guilty, pure
until a worm tries to slew right through you.
that is youth.

I have multiple poems to share this week, so I may as well put them all here since I've written quite a bit. I believe there are four poems, three of them are structured and one of them was for the Pre-NaPo Jam that I happened to run yesterday night. Anyway, here they are.

Whiskey - A Rispetto

The smell of whiskey
lingers on your breath.
I told you that it was risky,
but you still drank 'till death.

You hung by your fingertips,
words trailing off, an ellipse.
I remember that empty gaze,
for I would for the rest of days.


Marshmallow - A Septolet

You are
just another
marshmallow
that I

have lost
to the lambent,
naked flames.

Charcoal - A Pantoum


when i took you from the fire,
your hair smelled of charcoal.
all i could do was admire
how far you had come from a tadpole.

your hair smelled of charcoal,
the kind we used to knead our fingers onto;
how far you had come from a tadpole.
it is you that i have become so drawn to.

the kind we used to knead our fingers onto
when we were children, too young to understand;
it is you that i have become so drawn to
so just let me take hold of your hand.

when we were children, too young to understand,
all i could do was admire.
so just let me take hold of your hand,
when i take you from the fire.

Ramshackled

Arrival

I walk the old hallways
that I used to know so well,
catching up with small talk;
the only words that are able to slip through
these ivory teeth.
I walk until my legs are tired,
spacious of everyone that seems to pass by,
caught standing by a locker that used to be mine.
I walk until I cannot walk,
talk until I cannot talk, thinking that this place
is old clothes now. Hand-me-downs that can no longer
can be handed down. The ones father took to Goodwill
last week. And I know that jacket was getting old
but those sleeves had become skin.
I sit underneath the stairwell
and watch the lights established
outside the front doors
distinguish one by one
as the moonlight took its place.
I sit, and think about how
I don't miss this place at all.
And that is why my time here
is savory, a Cadbury Creme Egg
eaten once every Easter.
I can't stand this place
for more than a Friday night,
I don't know how I endured it
for seven long years.

Departure

Only when the masses that
drowned out this laden heartbeat
spilled out the doors
could I hear it once again.
Only when I stood alone
in the hallways left with waste
scattered across the floor
could I hear the gentle whisper
that I once claimed as mine.
Only once could I go back there
to that ramshackled place and I must say
never again. [At least,
not until next year.]

Done earlier this week. Since I'm done early I'm going to try and post one of these or another poem that I come with. I'll only post the poem that I originally did for this week, and it's nothing all that new but if I do post it I think it needs a bit of revision before I do that. I want to experiment with my poetry but I'm kind of at a point where I don't know how to experiment and do it for the better. I'm going to try and play more around with structure and structured poetry, because I haven't done a whole lot of that. I'm also sort of running out of things to actually write about and need more inspiration and new things to write about, so I'm going to look for that. Anyway, here it is.

Cottage

waves of apprehension
lap around your legs, and these tides,
they’re getting closer to that beach house
you hid yourself away in. the cottage by the sea
that you always dreamt of. you were hiding from college
amongst other things, but those thin rigid walls
cannot veil you forever. you sprawled yourself
across the carpet, in the stomach of your living room,
bottle lying beside you,
propped up against one of your ribs,
and i watched. i watched you become a lighthouse
that didn’t know what it was searching for.
i watched you get stoned, making shadow puppets
on the ceiling while you were high out of your mind.
flashlight lying beside you, i watched. i watched you
but never said anything, knowing that you would tell me
that you were fine, i was fine--everything was fine.
and at that time, i believed you,
but you still haven’t bothered
to wash the whiskey stains off the wall.

Macabre


An angel descended down to the ballroom,
stuck in a waltz with a macabre figure,
who looked as if they came from a tomb,
a flask in his back pocket, smelling of liquor.

The two of them spun around and around,
a conversation unravelling from their whispers.
To that checkered floor, they were bound;
the man's voice, it could not have been crisper.

The angel, he spoke softly and in a murmur,
clawing onto the cuffed sleeves he wore.
With his words, he could not have been firmer,
the dance leaving him something to grope for.

Bohemians swaying in their best dress,
in their long lives, this was their crest.

Coarse Sands

The night sky lay vacant above the boundless desert sands,
loose constellations sat in the azure, hovering over coarse sands.

The night sky sat upon the shoulders of Atlas, feet digging into
the ground. Broad shoulders forming plateaus over gritty sands.

A zephyr of wind blew across the surface, causing dunes to form
underneath the feet of men whose footprints were erased by bleak sands.

Juveniles roam the desolate land, handkerchiefs tied tight to their necks,
covering their faces and leaving only their eyes exposed to the pale sands.

Only fools wander into the inhospitable desert. Those who voyage in are
unlikely to come out, their ankles devoured by the calcareous sands.

Only the gullible meander their way into the desert, stuck in an hourglass
where the grains do not stop sprinkling onto the foundation of arid sands.

exodus


a viper coils before him, his knuckles whiten
as he grips arms of the throne, though he is too foolish
to unfasten the ropes that tether an exodus of wrists.
brothers bound by blood, but adversaries by nature,
oh, what a turn of events, for the two never expected
to be gazing into the eyes of one another in such a manner.

a series of events unheralded by all, 'where are my manners?'
he asks, a facade to hide his unease, his face whitens.
three men amble into the room, not what he expected,
the pharoah smiles, maybe he had been too foolish--
no. Moses loosened, knowing this was to happen by nature
and spoke, 'unfetter these people and unbind their wrists'.

the serpent devours the ones before it, the wrists
of slaves feel free, if only for a moment. his manners
and behavior do not change, but that is by nature.
Moses leaves the sacred temple, the sun whitens
as he steps outside into the smouldering desert, feeling foolish.
'take off your sandals', God said, words Moses never expected.

for Moses did not ask for this life, it was unexpected.
a newborn dropped from the sky, expected to soar, tiny wrists
flailing in midair, but perhaps the Nile will soften his fall, only fools
plunge through the laden clouds without a place to land. in the manner
in which he nosedived into this life, the rivers would turn to blood, whitening
the faces of many, for this was not a normal occurance in nature.

Moses struck his staff into the unruly river, and nature
responded, crimson seeping into the turbid waters, no one expected
this. the fish perish under the pharoah's rule, his knuckles do not whiten
by a shade, perverse and baring the head of a bull. his wrists
cling to the chair, not bothering to lift a single hand. What manners
did his mother teach him? The same manners she taught Moses.

smear the blood of sheep on the tops of your doors, only the foolish
refused this notion. the pharoah, set in his ways and adamant in his nature
woke to a refrain of death, repeating as a whisper in his ear. in a quiet manner
he lifted the body of his firstborn son and choked, 'it's over.' and by nature,
they left, scavanging the belongings of others without a second thought. their wrists
free of shackles. Moses led them to the land of milk and honey, the skies white.

the pharoah, foolish in his ways, never expected
to be of this nature. left penniless and with naked wrists,
no jewelry to veil his poor manners. knuckles left paper-white.

these dreams turn nightmares
when i wake, tormenting me
with all i desire, a mouse
on a string, just out of reach.

i miss you, and i know
this thought is unrequited,
but can we talk sometime?

i miss your sable hair that curled
at the tips, how you rarely spoke
and made every word that came out
from those pale lips important;
something i could never do.

i could come over, we could
watch Ouran together, curled up
on your threadbare couch.

i could hold your hand and
trace the lines in your palm
with a single finger, creating
tsunamis, just like you told me to.

without my reveries of
what we could be, you
are happy as you are,
his arm around your
shoulder, and i will
smile for you.

fluent in//broken hearts//breaking hearts


i am fluent in broken hearts, in misery,
almost as if it were my mother tongue.
there is a city on my bedside counter,
of bowls and plates and of silverware,
a civilization built over the past week.
is it depressing, how much time i spend
watching infomericials on the tv? brain
starting to concave, almost like a valley.

i search and search in the ball pit for
my childhood, this is where i lost it.
it is slithering away, shrieking like
a child who cannot contain themselves.

there is a chasm between me and
the person withering in the other room.
mother, must your hands deflower? i ask,
coming into the living room where i know
soon i'll have to change the name, time
slipping through these nimble fingers.
i massage her aching bones, at least
i can purge her pain, if only for a moment.

i am fluent in breaking hearts, even if
i intend to make amendments. too bad
Rosetta Stone doesn't offer that language.

reap what you sow


If April showers bring May flowers,
then why have only wrinkles appeared
on these earthy hands? I have sat and
waited and sat in this shower for hours,
waited while wading in the shallow water
for something to bloom. I watched
televangelists talk on the television
yesterday afternoon, and wondered who
could be so foolish while I bound the tongue
of the envelope with my own and crammed it
into the mailbox. I planted the seed, a crumbled
and torn Andrew Jackson kissed with coral blue
number two semi-gloss lipstick. If April showers
bring May flowers, then June debt brings July regret.

broken lovers

girls with broken mothers
are ones with broken lovers.

and i know i said i'm not one for huggers
but it's hard to smother this depression
under the covers. an undescript face,
i tell her the tears are just from accidental mace.

but that's not true.
i want to tell her
'i'm in love with you',

and yeah, girls with broken mothers
are more likely to be broken lovers,
so go ahead and tell me i don't
really love her.


addiction runs in our genes,
i hear mother say. father can't
keep out of his jeans and mother
with her cigarettes, and how she wishes
that they'd never met. both are
living on borrowed time, and i'm
obsessed with every pretty face i meet
yet every time i'm left with defeat.

cadence

the cadence in your lungs
is broken by gutteral coughs.
the fatigue pulls down your eyelids,
tan curtains of an ephemeral life.

you toss and turn frequently
into the restless night, exhaustion
slowly chiseling away at you
until you've sunken into the mattress.

when sunshine comes, it doesn't.


ambient guitar

you playing your ambient guitar
on the backporch when its raining,
hoping that your dog will come home.

allergies and homework are the two
carrying my bodybag to the cemetary
that i will be buried in. the cemetary
where my grandparents and parents
are soon to inhabit. i can never
get away from them, can i?

i'm sorry, but your dog's not coming home
no matter how many tunes you play
on your low-budget guitar, and i'm sorry
but i'm going to die someday. you'll
have to learn to accept that, kid.

- a letter to my past self.

breathe


breathe. that is what i tell myself
oh so often. i took a crowbar
to the heart when i fell in love
with you, ribs pushed aside and
lungs deflated. these bones are
firewood burning the plastic
inflatable armbands that i wore
as mandatory. breathe in the flames
as if they were your own kin.
exhale the fumes that dwell
inside of you. breathe. that is
what i fail to achieve oh so often.
the simplest of tasks, made hardest
by this apprehension i can't seem to shake.