Young Writers Society

So yeah, I'm late. I was trying to convince myself not to do this but I just can't hold myself back. Hope I'm not breaking any rules, I've never done this before.

Onwards.

#1: picasa, you, and learning to drown

i find a picture of you
a memory concealed in a
shroud of code
(a digital photo bank
along a river, a sea of souls:
long hidden,
never forgotten)
and with shades of crimson
and cerulean blue
(you used to murmur
that clouds never learn to swim,
that we are merely watching
a drowning sky)
the printer spits you out so that
i can hold you between my fingertips,
close my eyes, and
reminiscence about
the time you called me
sister.

#2:

you used to murmur theories,
as your eyelashes would flutter,
about breathing being overrated
and that we'll all close our eyes someday
so why not start now?

(but as your eyelids touched
you shut out my love)

you used to vocalize your aspiritions,
as your arms would flutter by your hips,
about how humans should have grown feathers
but we lost faith in flight so long ago
that we'll regain them someday
and fly with our eyes closed.

(but as you yearned for feathers
i painfully tore away)

you used to yell in my ear,
as your heart would flutter weakly,
about how you would be beautiful and i was not
and how that somehow gave you bonus points in the eyes of God
being skinny would help you soar
thick thighs and stubby noses
do not deserve wings.

(but as you dreamed of beauty
i began to see you for what you were)

and sometimes i would wonder
if corpses have moments of giddy breathlessness
when they drop into the earth.

#3

dear brother and sister i have yet to know,

my parents are longing for an adoption, and we will choose you.
i can feel it.
i know.
out of everyone in the whole earth, we chose you. we wanted you.
remember that.
and i just want you to understand, in your souls, that whatever the world has thrown at you, whatever society has deemed you to be, whatever you have taught yourself to think to survive it all...
it is beneath you. you are stronger.
because we are a family, even if we are strangers right now, and i love you both, very much.
and i'm excited to meet you.
are you ready for an adventure?

love, your new older sister (God-willing), to-be.

#4



When surrounded by friends, you laugh to yourself.
When they beg you to eat, you flick your wrist, a smile tugging at your lips.
You will achieve your goal, you proclaim.
Food only hinders progress.
Friends are support, not therapists.
"Why can't you love me for who I am?" you giggle, eyes shifting like the ocean after a storm.
Your friends do not laugh with you, because you are dying.
They cannot smile, because they love you.
You have never loved yourself.

You have never loved yourself.
They cannot smile, because they love you.
Your friends do not laugh with you, because you are dying.
"Why can't you love me for who I am?" you giggle, eyes shifting like the ocean after a storm.
Friends are support, not therapists.
Food only hinders progress.
You will achieve your goal, you proclaim.
When they beg you to eat, you flick your wrist, a smile tugging at your lips.
When surrounded by friends, you laugh to yourself.

#5



I told you not to carry around your old pain like a trunk full of clothes
didn't I?
I always said that it'd be like a watermelon seed heavy in your stomach,
I did,
and that the vines would wind around your veins as the viridescent glow continues to grow.
I did tell you.
But you said no, plants are beautiful, let them be.
You did say that.

I warned you that soon you'd have a watermelon tree,
didn't I?
I told you that you'd cringe as the branches sprouted between your ribs
And that you'd clench your teeth against the fear with parted ruby lips.
I did.
And that the pain would be deafening and deadly and
powerful.
And repulsive but beautiful and inspiring and
irresistible.
I did tell you.
I did.

But you didn't listen because you were too busy packing your suitcase.
Then you ate more watermelon
and cried.

#6

sometimes I'll stare at old art
retracing the charcoal lines with fingertips soft
ashes etched into the coarse parchment
each stroke a whirlwind of passionately executed tragedies
curling over and through my imagination and into reality
to form a dream long clenched between baby teeth
and gripping a pencil in my fist.

#7



~because i never learned the names of bones~

when i stumbled upon your anatomy, i never would have thought to
peel back the layers and walk on your vertabrae and sift through the marrow
but with a sweep of your radius and a flick of a scaphoid
my femurs swept forward without my asking,
(and you found that humerus)
you fibula-d and you snuck a kiss
(our zygomatics clashed hard when you missed)
creeping digits over skin
you poked through my ribs
(sharp as they were)
behind my sternum
nestled inside
and perched daintily on my sacrum,
you sang to me.

and remarkably,
i and my bones,
we haven't broken yet.

#8

"enjoy your life!"
i would, if the world would just
stop screaming, and pause.

#9



on the day that my nightmares followed to reality,
there were storm clouds swelling the sun closed
and the air was full of water grenades,
rigged and ready to explode on our foreheads.

you and i, we were wisps of smoke, and
our toes were blue with cold.
your eyes lit the sky like the stars that they are
and together
we were invincible.
but falling tightrope walkers make for a good show
and broken-hearted girls are all that we know,
so as my world spiraled separately desperately and
flawlessly out of control,
you murmured to yourself,

“it’s beautiful.”

#10



"the sun is feeling shy today"

the little boy gazes at stormy skies above and
smiles sadly.

"it doesn't seem to like me
anymore."

#11

I'm just going to leave this soul here,
for you to find later, you know,
besides the mounds of past pain you buried down deep and all the
open wounds,
the bad memories and cliffs you'd rather not fall down again,
the stained glass shards of broken faith
and nights spent preaching the truth over and over to the mirror,
wasting sleep and wasting away,
because I can see that your clothes are still damp from
precipitation of stormy daydreams.

You never did give me much of a glance, but
one day you might need this, need me,
so I'm just setting this here
for a later date.

#12

Writing is not symmetrical.
All my a's and g's and q's are as fickle as the weather
Twisting themselves into new contortions every daybreak
And they curl in on themselves when my hand shakes
When I try to be neat, eyes narrowed in concentration
The letters decide to engage in self-mutilation
My z's turn to k's and my b's turn to d's
My o's turn to u's and my e's turn to c's
Cursive, print, scrawling, it's all such a bore
The excitement's electric when new letters are in store.

So really, this lesson is mine:
My handwriting's not perfect.

And neither am I.

#13

my little Gatsby,
didn't your mother ever tell you that
rich girls don't go
quietly?

#14

i.
i never think right, do i?
you always tell me i spout the strangest things and that
you just don't know what do do with them, but
pointing the way with baby canine teeth and
jagged passive aggressive undertones that
jab me in the eyes, you'll
tell me to stop trying.

"let me do the thinking."

ii.
i never know when to be quiet, do i?
you always tell me i rattle on and on and
you just can't hardly handle it but
you love me so you bear with my
annoying habits that make you want to
tear your skin open and away from me
i should be grateful, you say.

"just shut up already,
dammit, be quiet!"

iii.
i said something of my own for once.

"no, i'm done with you."

everything always ends with you, doesn't it?

iv.
i'm always so stupid, aren't i?
you always said that i could be so idiotic at times that
you'd want to bash my head through a wall and
then i'd be wondering where i'd end up after that but
here i am.

i think i'm getting smarter but
right now i'm not sure.

v.
you always told me that all monsters are human.
i guess, in your own special way,
that's what you were,
to me.