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Young Writers Society


all my missing pieces or all my hoarded holes



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Tue Jun 01, 2021 1:29 am
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Hijinks says...



he hoards holes like handmedowns

I've been thinking of making a thread like this for a while now, so here it is finally! I'm going to use this as a place to store poems I don't necessarily want a review on and drafts that I want to come back to at some point in the future.

This is also me trying to make myself semi accountable to keep up the NaPo habit of writing poems more frequently, since I really enjoyed doing that - and I can't be trusted not to go 6 months without writing any more poetry just because I'm busy *cough* read: lazy *cough*

On the topic of goals, some random stuff I'm aiming for and may or may not get around to!
  1. Write something every week
  2. Structures/forms: prose poetry, spoken word, limericks (serious??), villanelles
  3. Experiment with second and third person
  4. Try out themes...other than angst?? I know, sounds weird to me as well >.>
When you're faced with something you don't understand, I think the most natural thing but also least interesting thing you can be is afraid.

-- Hank Green

they/them
(previously whatchamacallit and Seirre)
  





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Tue Jun 01, 2021 1:43 am
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table of contents

05/21/21
06/08/21
06/10/21
06/15/21
06/22/21
07/03/21

Notes App dump
random notebook poem
When you're faced with something you don't understand, I think the most natural thing but also least interesting thing you can be is afraid.

-- Hank Green

they/them
(previously whatchamacallit and Seirre)
  





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Tue Jun 01, 2021 1:54 am
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05/21/21

i.
The deck is a minefield of amber leaf shells, discarded by trees who have moved on already. They don't need the reminders of months past clinging to their unfurled leaves like broken armour. Yet here I am, so desperate for reminders that I collect the sappy bits on the soles of my feet like badges. I keep memories glued to my heart like an envelope - over and over I lick the flap to seal it shut and then decide I'm not ready yet and leave it hanging open. This nostalgia tastes like acid teardrops on cracked lips.

ii.
I sit in the shade to avoid a sunburn and in the lull of birds chirping I notice it's windier here. The smell of gasoline seeps through the edge of the breeze and I wonder if someone is trying to convince the sun to rain fire.

iii.
Strings of spiderwebs hang like bungee cords and I can't help but believe that a brave caterpillar has swung on one, adrenaline filling its chubby torso. Ants crawl the wide trunk of a tree in front of me. Has one ever reached the highest branch, or do they think the canopy stretches onwards into eternity? If an ant ever made it that high it would faint.

iv.
Torn-up dandelions are heaped together. They have been run through a vintage filter, orange turning to green-gold and green turning to brown-olive. Or they're dying.
When you're faced with something you don't understand, I think the most natural thing but also least interesting thing you can be is afraid.

-- Hank Green

they/them
(previously whatchamacallit and Seirre)
  





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Tue Jun 08, 2021 7:01 pm
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06/08/21

(draft)

there's something so simple in the way
a puppy lives. a leash means biting the handle
loop between your naive teeth,
and walking yourself on legs that still waddle.

there's something so daunting in the way
a puppy lives. feet that could stomp you out
mean toes to lick and shoes
to become improvised chew bones.

when kibbles lie too far away in their bowl,
you don't move to get them;
you bark at them until they respond.
(they don't, but it's the thought that counts.)

you eat everything, not because it smells
or looks good, but because it smells
and looks inedible and you refuse
to judge a substance by its outward appearance.

there's something so human in the way
a puppy sleeps peacefully with a stuffie at night,
and tears it to white stuffing in the morning.
When you're faced with something you don't understand, I think the most natural thing but also least interesting thing you can be is afraid.

-- Hank Green

they/them
(previously whatchamacallit and Seirre)
  





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Fri Jun 11, 2021 2:02 am
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06/10/21


dandelion dares don't disappear down drains. "done" defies definition: don't declare decaying daylight done. dying dawn doesn't deem dark done. decisions dance down dunes, dredging dissolved danger-dregs despite dawdling doubts. decent discoveries deform dour during doom-depths. doting daisies doesn't discount damage, dear. dexterous distress doesn't debase damage, darling. don't default denial-dependence.
When you're faced with something you don't understand, I think the most natural thing but also least interesting thing you can be is afraid.

-- Hank Green

they/them
(previously whatchamacallit and Seirre)
  





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Gender: Other
Points: 22098
Reviews: 455
Tue Jun 15, 2021 3:44 pm
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06/15/21

Rewrite and mash-up of confusion and No choice.

my mouth is a waterfall and these words tumble out:
they collect in a storm of white-froth confusion.
lies slip away like salmon climbing the rapids, and i
am helplessly pulled along on my end of the fishing line.
i try to dig in my heels, but the rocks are scaled in algae,
and the water is oily between my water-wrinkled fingers.
i look up, hoping to pluck a star from the sky: bait
for the renegade fish. but the night is brown with city-light
glare, and i can not reach far enough through the mud
to find the sunken reflections of sleeping constellations.
When you're faced with something you don't understand, I think the most natural thing but also least interesting thing you can be is afraid.

-- Hank Green

they/them
(previously whatchamacallit and Seirre)
  





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Wed Jun 23, 2021 1:52 am
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06/22/21

i like to go swimming, but patience
sinks to the riverbed like a handful of scooped-up
sand and i find myself stirring mud, enticed by
the water-mixed dirt. and i find myself bathing
in mud-puddles, as i cry grit out of my eyes and
laugh gravel out of my throat. and i find
myself calling it a chocolate fondu, as i watch
the sweet broth trickle down my arms.
and i find myself washing it away with tears.
i wait long enough, and i find myself forgetting
the clear touch of a summer lake, because
all i ever wanted was to go swimming.
When you're faced with something you don't understand, I think the most natural thing but also least interesting thing you can be is afraid.

-- Hank Green

they/them
(previously whatchamacallit and Seirre)
  





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Fri Jul 09, 2021 1:38 pm
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07/03/21


I don't think this needs a rating, but it is pretty Big Sad, so if you're not in a good place for reading sad angst you might prefer skipping over this one <3

tears taste different at this time of night. they taste like lost wishes, leftover from this morning's dew. they taste like the precipitation of month-old clouds that settle behind the backs of my numb retina. because when the sky's heavy for long enough, eventually it grows too weak to hold back the rain and the blue paint flakes to the ground. and when i keep touching up the peeled blue, soon there are so many layers that the ceiling is weighed down with exoskeletons and crumbles away.

i lick my chapped lips at this time of night, hoping to find congealed words that i can redigest. and then maybe i can induce vomiting and they'll pour out of me like cotton candy, with break-tooth-hard nerds buried in the heart of it all. and the sour-lightning lemon nerds will whisper in their crunch, i don't want to sleep because then i have to wake up and feel a split-second of excitement. excitement before remembering that all the excitement has run off to the circus of nighttime dreamscape excitement. i don't want to sleep because the morning comes quicker when i do.

thoughts stop hiding at this time of night; the gently simmering frost boils up between every crack that emerges in the dark. there are so many crystallized water beads stabbing the backs of my eyelids that i cannot read anything except the constellation of you're always wrong. i cannot hear anything through the sleet of hailstones in my ears except the howling of you've always been a liar.

life smells different at this time of night. it smells like the petals of crushed memories, from a bouquet of poorly-pressed flowers. it smells like the earth in the downtrodden moment between two storms, grimy with the bodies of worms that i've crushed beneath my feet. it smells like a glass full of sour milk that collects grainy on my lips, and i know i have to swallow it all.

i snuff snot up my nostrils and sob myself to sleep at this time of night.
When you're faced with something you don't understand, I think the most natural thing but also least interesting thing you can be is afraid.

-- Hank Green

they/them
(previously whatchamacallit and Seirre)
  





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Sun Sep 04, 2022 10:02 pm
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I raided my notes app for poems from the past year, and I thought I'd pop them in this thread for now! I might post them in the publishing center later, or use them as inspiration for some poem writing this month~ a couple of them are still very much just drafts, which I think is why I didn't originally share them on here.

07/17/2021

when i was six, i asked my mommy if
i could marry my best friend:
she glanced out the window at
a grey-rinse landscape, as our
navy Ram van with ducktape
accessories heaved itself along.
"sure, hun, you can marry whoever makes
you happy," came after the bump of a bridgeseam.
i think she thought i was confusing
platonic tea-party blinking with romantic candle-lit heartbeating,
the novice mistake a six year old makes.
but i can't help but wonder if
maybe little me was more on track
than she meant to be, as i skim
another rainbow-rinsed article
with the refrain of "Q is for Questioning";
or maybe i'm still making the same novice mistakes
with the ease of a decade of practice.

08/14/2021

you know that prayer that little western-world children offer up to their ceilings before bed: Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my Soul to keep; If I should die before I 'wake, I pray the Lord my Soul to take. of course you have to admit it's kind of morbid for five year olds to be whispering at white walls about dying as they dream, but then, maybe we shouldn't apply qualitative words like "morbid" to natural, neutral things like death. but regardless of morbidity, I think we all say that prayer before we sleep, if you just swap out "Lord" for "night". If consciousness is a flame on a stick, we pass the torch to nighttime when we pass out. The ringing in our ears fades away, like the muted end of a music track, and then the crickets and cicadas start up their white noise in the pitch black. Our lips close - or fall open when sleep apnea has a say - and then the wind practices lip rolls in the trees. Our eyes shut and clouds blink across stars, sometimes drifting fast like a night sky with something in its eye, and sometimes lingering slow like the darklit ground below is a thing to stare wide-eyed, starry-eyed, at. Our heartbeat settles, but the cars rush by in an erratic cardiogram of air against steel and rubber against road. I just can't find a metaphor for breathing, so I can't help but wonder if we hold our breath while we sleep, saving it like a commodity for the morning. That or the gender neutral human in the moon inhales and exhales for us, filling their craters with oxygen and then blowing carbon dioxide out like space dust. All this soul that we let seep into the nighttime air around us, trusting that the night will return it come morning and its sunrise-rust. And knowing that if we die before morning comes, we'll be a part of the night forever. Maybe that's why some people stay awake so late: there's no reason to believe the night will bother to give you back your soul.

08/16/2021

I hear humming, and I can't tell if it's coming from my eardrums, or from workaholic crickets below my window, or from the ASMR running lazily on my Chromebook. So I press my hands against my ears to see if the sound will go away, but then I am met with the rush of blood through my head and the thud of the pulse in my fingers. Funny how literally nobody else can hear my heart beat, it's that quiet, but it drowns out every other sound when I bring it up to my ears. Maybe my body is trying to remind me that I am so fragilely balanced that if that rhythm is disrupted, I die.

04/13/2022

my mind is this rocking horse of
back and forth, worry and rebuttal:
there's not a day that goes by without
a call and response of "she hates me!"
and "you moron, don't make everyone's
bad day about you." but I can't help it,
the way I feel like I am the weather forecast;
not really equipped for my job;
and everyone quick to blame me
when the weather's bad. although, to date
I am the only everyone I've ever encountered.
When you're faced with something you don't understand, I think the most natural thing but also least interesting thing you can be is afraid.

-- Hank Green

they/them
(previously whatchamacallit and Seirre)
  





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Sun Sep 04, 2022 10:31 pm
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Hijinks says...



Spoiler! :
I have ~thoughts~ about some of these poems that I want to write down somewhere, but that don't really fit the vibe of things I post on my wall - so I figured I'll just put them down here. You're welcome to read on if you'd like, but I think most people probably won't find this stuff super interesting.

07/17/2021

The thing about reading back on poetry you've written for yourself - especially if you had kinda forgotten that you'd written that specific poem - is that sometimes it can really hit deep, because it reflects your exact experiences and your exact responses to said experiences. It's hard to find that in other people's poetry, because, yknow, they have different experiences and responses. Which isn't to say there isn't tons of value in reading other people's experiences, or that you still can't find loads personal meaning in other people's poetry - but I digress!
or maybe i'm still making the same novice mistakes
with the ease of a decade of practice.

These two lines specifically struck such a deep chord reading them again a year later. I've been struggling a lot trying to parse the difference between romantic and platonic feelings of love lately, and this poem is about 6 year old me doing the exact same thing - and yeah, it has quite literally been a decade+ of making the same "novice mistakes". Which feels really frustrating to see that directly written down, like it's an unavoidable testimony to my inability - but at the same time, kind of comforting to know this isn't a new development in my life? I guess you could say my own poem really spoke to me xD

08/14/2021

The start of this poem is kind of iffy - it sounds too much like a straight-up journal entry, not a polished poem - but I feel like the second half has a lot of potential I think. My relationship with the night has changed since writing this, though, so I might try writing a response poem or something for fun~ like, the reason I tend to stay up late (for my standards) now is because I'm obsessively scrolling Tik Tok / Instagram on my phone so I don't have to confront my brain and its thoughts. Which is quite different than avoiding sleep itself! I'm avoiding the in-between area when you're just lying there awake, bombarded by thoughts, waiting to fall asleep.
Our heartbeat settles, but the cars rush by in an erratic cardiogram of air against steel and rubber against road. I just can't find a metaphor for breathing, so I can't help but wonder if we hold our breath while we sleep, saving it like a commodity for the morning.

I'm gonna do something I rarely do, which is gush about my own poetry! these lines !! omg !! so poetic. peak imagery. I love that they don't fall inside my imagery comfort zone (namely, you know, water and celestial imagery). Although, come to think of it, I have been leaning toward physical/bodily imagery the past few months, and there is a hint of that showing up here. It kind of shows the way my imagery has been evolving and migrating over time, which is really cool in my opinion :')

08/16/2021

Okay so like the execution is meh, but I agree with my past self that this subject has great poetic potential. The idea that when you cover your ears to try and drown out sound, sometimes you'll just start hearing different internal sounds (ie, your heartbeat) is *chef's kiss*. I'm definitely going to try to revisit this at some point as the starting point of a poem. I think it could make a really compelling poem about feeling overwhelmed, too much sensory input, panicked emotions, etc.

04/13/2022

Hah. This is a relatable poem. Imagine that! I like that it's so short and self contained; I often struggle with that in my poetry.
the way I feel like I am the weather forecast;
not really equipped for my job;

This actually puts the way I've been feeling into words so well. I wish I could tell past me that!
although, to date
I am the only everyone I've ever encountered.

ouch, no need to call yourself out like that, Seirre.

I know I've already basically said this about the first poem - but there's something really wholesome about the fact that you can write poetry, and when you read it a month or year later, you feel so seen. Seen by your past self, yes, which maybe isn't the most meaningful or helpful person to be seen by - but at the same time, it is your own view of yourself that matters most at the end of the day. And isn't it just inherently wonderful that you can essentially time travel through your writing to help and comfort different versions of yourself?? I don't know how well I'm putting this into words, but yeah. I think it's amazing, and it points to the value and importance of writing poetry for yourself sometimes, and not just for others. You don't need to share your poetry with others for it to hold meaning or worth. <3
When you're faced with something you don't understand, I think the most natural thing but also least interesting thing you can be is afraid.

-- Hank Green

they/them
(previously whatchamacallit and Seirre)
  





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Thu Dec 21, 2023 4:26 am
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12/19/2023

(very rough draft)

i am tired of the way you make me feel
(new emotions). i have never been able to just
dip my toes into whatever i am feeling - no - that is for
people who believe in moderation. i submerse myself
as deep as my bones will take me. every pore in my body
must be saturated.

i already had enough ways to sink. and now you have introduced
a novel sensation: you make my bones vibrate, hum, buzz
against my blood vessels. you lean your head against my shoulder or
touch my knee with yours or
hold my gaze a moment too long
and i am lost in the rapids. foaming, bubbling, sizzling
like sodium in water. drama and no elegance.
When you're faced with something you don't understand, I think the most natural thing but also least interesting thing you can be is afraid.

-- Hank Green

they/them
(previously whatchamacallit and Seirre)
  





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Reviews: 455
Mon Mar 18, 2024 10:05 pm
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Hijinks says...



found this in a notebook—not sure exactly when I wrote it


​Everything descends at night.
I can touch the condensation on my skin—
all the panic, the anger, the syrupy feelings.
I am drenched in every emotion
I thought I could outrun in the day.
I try to keep outrunning—out the front door,
down the sidewalk, down to the reservoir.
But I may as well outrun myself. Every step
of the way, I keep up. I speed up. I keep up.
And now I am at the baseball diamond, alone at 11 pm.
I am sprinting, and people do not sprint down sidewalks. No.
So I am glad I am alone.
Everyone is asleep, or absorbed in their own descent.
I wonder if diving into the reservoir would wash off this condensation.
But I fear the beads that cling to my neck and slide into my spine
are not soluble. Perhaps I should burn it all off. No.
I run, I run, I run, I run. Into the shadows.
My ribcage creaks. My lungs slam against it.
And then I breathe in the street lights.
I breathe like it is a matter of life and death.
When you're faced with something you don't understand, I think the most natural thing but also least interesting thing you can be is afraid.

-- Hank Green

they/them
(previously whatchamacallit and Seirre)
  








People find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right.
— Albus Dumbledore