Young Writers Society

Who am I.

I am

Old and
Young.

A daughter and
sister and
Friend.

A writer who is
Quiet.
Too quiet.
And an overthinker.

Shy,
Socially anxious,
Observer,
Scared and
Anxious.

Depressed and
Sad.
Hopeless and
Unwanted.
Weird and
Awkward.

I am hurting
And have been hurt.
Lonely.
Silenced.
Uncertain.
And Traumatized.

Burnt out and
Lazy.
Hard worker, but also
Incomplete, but also
Whole.

Silly and
Mature.
Immature and
Naïve.

I am a survivor,
Who is healing.
And I am well-rounded.

You and
Me.

Human.

The movement of a bird,
Is limited on land.
So still, so laboured,
Limitless and small.
You are a waste of space,
Little bird.
Pathetic.

With a chirp
And a flap,
And a little bit of God’s grace,
A bird takes flight.

Stillness is raised
To a limitless canvas of
Exploration.
A single chirp,
A refraction of every emotion
You have ever felt.

Something I need to confess.

Every day, I repent of sins I choose to make.
And every day I apologize
For praying insincerely.
The guilt consumed every moment of my life
The first time.
And the second.
And the third.
But by the fourth, I felt freedom.
Freedom to life, freedom to sin,
Freedom to continual and endless imperfections.
Freedom to everything I promised
I would never turn to.
I was washed over by a wave,
Which sucked me away with the current
Of the tide.
Drowning only hurts
Until you stop fighting.
Every day, I do things I regret.
And every day, I repent.
And every day, I don’t mean it,
And every day, I want to mean it a little less.
And every day, is every day.
And sin is sin.
Death will be death.
Freedom is what I have,
All I need to do is figure out
If it is enough.

A poem I write in the middle of the night.

The humming of the sound machine
Sounds like the beach of my childhood.
Where we walked along tree trunks,
And dipped our toes in the ocean.
The water, from a glacier, stung like
A pinch to my mind.
Freedom was my name.
Freedom in spirit, but no control
Of my own autonomy.
A prisoner in my home
That never felt like a home.
All of our hearts were dead.
I sit here in the middle of the night,
Remembering the sand and the shells.
Maybe I was the girl who
sold them at the seashore.
A shell for a smile was all she wanted.
But my mother never showed me warmth,
Younger me thought she must have
Been birthed in the ocean.
Her head full of salt.
And so I sit in stillness and silence.
And remember the little girl I was
At the beach of my childhood.
Shush, shush, shush.
Sleep welcomes me.

everything i have to give

i am a lighthouse
in a sea of living creatures.
always moving, always swimming faster
than i can find relief.
my guiding ray,
always used,
always needed,
never appreciated,
and never noticed
until you need me again.

my light flickers,
and you only demand perfection.
my gears and motors melt
into a pool of tears and blood,
which keep you warm.
everything i have to give
is always yours to hold
and never mine to cherish.

i stand alone,
hugged only by the endless ocean.
i dont know how far it goes,
or how deep it falls,
but to me it never ends.
to me, you are nothing more than
an omnipotent personage who controls
every emotion i am granted permission to feel.

I think

i always thought
you were my reason to live.
and then you left.
i am still figuring out if
it was you, or if it was actually me.
i always thought
that you were what determined
my unpredictable days of happiness.
you were the little pebble on the end of the scale,
what balanced me on the good side.
the safe side.
but what if there is no good side,
and no bad too?
i always thought
that who i was determined who i would be
and who i wouble be was the only thing
that mattered.
but what if what really matters, is nothing at all?
and stepping out of the cave i was living in
has made me
think that maybe
life is my reason to live.
not you.

forgiveness is a funny thing,
because i can't imagine a world where
i dont hate you.
you murdered every piece
of the me who loved you.
you tortured her soul
with longsuffering, not worthy of any atonement.
am i still worthy of happiness,
in a world where i cannot forget?
sometimes, the truth is,
i forget too much.
and remember too hard.
sometimes i worry that i am the villian,
blind to every pain i have caused.
i wear clothes made of patches
and skin smooth from products that lie.
i have lost who i was
and i am uncertain of who i am,
and who i will ever be happy becomming.
sometimes i think,
maybe forgiveness isnt real at all.

i blame myself for every tear you cry,
because all i can think about
is how i should have done more.
i feel like the villian my own story.

Feel

Making myself feel pretty
Feels like a full time job,
Where everything is never enough.

Trying to salvage my sanity
Feels like a competition
Where the prize is a life good enough to live.

Learning how to find forgiveness
Feels like a frightening reunion.
Was I even invited?

Every piece of the girl i used to be,
Hides.
Every part of who i want to be,
Is trapped.
And every fraction of the love you gave me,
Is gone.

A box of everything i lost in my life

When i got the box of everything i ever lost,
I opened it up.
The first thing i found was the teddy bear
Who i left at the airport when i was ten.
I wish i could tell little me he was safe,
To evaporate a few buckets of tears.
I couldnt find my heart,
Because you stole it,
It was never lost.
My childhood wasnt inside either,
Because it was never mine to begin with.
It was only yours to use.

In the corner of the box of everything i ever lost.

TW- Brief mention of self harm

every tale of love my life has written

I am scared that
I will never live the love
I imagine.
Because all the love I see,
Is insufficient of my fantasies
And dreams.
And every tale of love my life has written,
Has ended.

As a child, you told me about monsters.
What a shame,
I never looked in the mirror.

You were a monster,
But you got so much better.
In the last few years, you have healed
(what elixir did the Gods give you?).

Yesterday I realized
I have become the monster.
You are free.
Freedom at last.
(and the only liberation in sight
Is everything I will never have-
And every girl I will never be.)