Young Writers Society

Ayyyy~

good morning
heartache. your body
is colder than the sheets
i lie under. a usurper’s heart
beats in the hope chest
and in the midst of
leaving a message
i forgot what
made us care. (a promise
tastes like this: the only
sin worth
sinning is the one
whose colors you
can see when you close your
eyes and everything
else turns to
black.)

this would be the
upward spike before
the market crashes. listen, dear one;
our history is a synonym. list out every
word beginning with apathy through
zenith (the spell that
keeps us contained in
these small masses—part your lips. your tongue
knows more than
you let on). Speak aloud your
queenship—you crave an altar of
heartbreak.

rule not with an iron
fist but with your soft palm on my
cheek. (let me) remember
what you were like
before
you grew claws.

i wish my
prayers looked
more like
lace and less
like the tatters of
what i was dreaming the
night before. four am is a
taste in the back of my
mouth and
a shade of lipstick smeared
on the back of your
hand. teeth are the only
things we have in common. (but i
still lay awake and dream of
how warm your
skin would grow under
mine, and what four
am would taste like in
quantities made for two.)

you are the stuff religions
are made of
and wars
have been
fought for less. a thousand
swords in my
back
and all of
them wear
your name.

your heart is paper
thin. i could crumple it in
my hand and smooth it out
and trace all the places where i
left my
mark—a
roadmap of treasure reburied. speak
softly to me,
lovely. my heart is
paper thin and
parched on
rain water, and only
your voice can
fill the well. six cups
all in a row and
my assorted immoralities
float gently
in each one.

(breathe now. your
fingernails are cut
down to the quick. breathe now. the devil
on your shoulder is in
love with the girl next door. breathe
now. stories like this are concave cathedrals
without guts. Breathe now.
breathe.
breathe.
breathe—)

a
cosmic tragedy is looking
beyond your
ribs and
rips, to the
infrastructure of
your heart
and knowing you
are, to yourself,
out
of reach.

(how many blades
did you bury
before you became
the
king of swords? a razor’s
edge is the widest
path you will ever walk.)

but i have imagined. coined victorious.
every
battle lost with
myself is a path struck down.
look at my hands. when
have i touched anything not
meant for you?
i will
search for meaning with my
eyes open and blind. the cups on
my desk are full of pens
and swords, and no
matter which i choose the
only person i hurt is no
longer here.

oh
god,
give me this—my
daily choice; all of my
journeys go backwards.

Sachi, you string words together so excellently. This one is my favourite so far, and not just because you managed to use "infrastructure" in a poem and make it sound good:

Sachiko wrote:a
cosmic tragedy is looking
beyond your
ribs and
rips, to the
infrastructure of
your heart
and knowing you
are, to yourself,
out
of reach.

(how many blades
did you bury
before you became
the
king of swords? a razor’s
edge is the widest
path you will ever walk.)

day has broken
in me
again. a dawn on
my breastbone shaped
like the butterfly kisses
i dreamed of. is this what
it feels like to be a sum
of unequal parts? my shapeless
wanting smells like
morning rain and
constellations on the
lawn. walk softly. this
is my heart on
a hollywood projection screen with
the sound turned low. (i have missed
all my cues, but the script rolls
on and your response is still
the same on the final page. the paper
shredder knows you
more intimately than i do.)
morning light under
water is how i feel
with your
hand on my back
and your lips on
my hair and
your secrets leaking
into mine. our bastard
child
is serendipity. she smells
like rain
falling in reverse.

(forgive me
my
usurper’s heart. I am a mirror
unto myself, but my reflection is
always turned the other way)

UUUUUSUUURPEEEEEER

Ilu <3

the scratches
in my kitchen table
synchronize with
every missed
phone call. (the dial tone
is my daily soundtrack; listen. it is a
mislabeled mixtape for my heart.)
urd brought me into her liminal
cathedral and promised me a sword
for each hand,
and
a third for your
heart in
my chest. the killing
stroke tastes like
bonfire and
salt. (sins are kinder
when strained
through lace
curtains at quarter
after one in
the morning. the scratches
in my
kitchen table spell
your name when
i'm not looking. a sword
for each hand but
the last through
my spine. this
is
what it means
to remake
yourself.)

(your dial tone sounds
like three swords
being sharpened against
the day you
pressed my hair
between your
fingers in
the wind and
the sun shining
backwards. salt and
smoke lace inside
your heart, bleeding
out on
my floor.)

i
learned in
the backwards method
how easy prayer
presses itself
small. these are
words to god,
lined
up on a pewter
highway. if i
folded myself
insubstantial, i can
fit in the
cracks between
heaven and your hands.
i
swallow every tiny
mea culpa without
knowing if
this is
the end. (bless
me father, i don't
know what i'm
doing, i have
no beads to
press into my
heart.)

i am a
genesis
of my own
making.
someday
i will think of
a holy word and
bury it in
the trees where
it belongs. i will
build a cotton cathedral
for all my unholy
thoughts, and
forgive myself
the ugliness of
catharsis.

but i’m still
here, in this
place of
gentle
treason. i wish
i knew how
many crowns i have
left to burn.

“this is
your heart
on replay,” she
told me. i learned
from her feet
how to smile at
sadness, and welcome
it into my
heart like a guest.
I tattooed
on my third
eye “lessons to keep
you humble”, but
still i googled “fifty
ways to coax home
your demons” behind
my own back.

(four swords to
pin them down. the
iron in
your tongue tastes
like wine.)

i can
see your
name in the
cracked pavement and
it has more spaces
in it than
i remember.

i am grateful
for red lights
at the crosswalk. my
thursday
self read the
future in her
rearview mirror and it
tasted like gasoline
and leather under my
tongue. the sunglasses in
my
glove compartment show
me the moon from a
hundred septembers ago, when
your fingers were as silver and
cold as the rest of you.

(i think
you have forgotten who
you are speaking
to, loved one. only
we could speak
so casually to an open
grave.)