Young Writers Society

all my alternate universes have you in them

that morning-- dark broiling waves on the ocean, the ramones blaring,
fists pounding the dashboard, driving too fast, lips talking too fast, everything unfair split into pieces and scattered on the hospital room floor. when i left and came back you were still crying.

that morning-- quiet rain hanging on trees, misty mountain top lullaby
tears against collarbones and the begging for you to stay, the pleading
you're so tired, i can tell, and i let your breath go for just a second-- let you stop for just one second.

that morning-- bright skies, not a cloud, piano music on the radio
hand in hand and soft lips against cheeks, you're sleeping and i watch you. all i can think about is breathing.

that morning-- blank everything. a slate washed clean. someone sings down in the valley
i tell you i love you one more time. you can't answer. i'm not allowed to cry so i just look at you.

after you are gone

you take your sadness and throw it away in the river
when they lock you in a room and tell you it'll make you better--
we know the magic cure, eat these magic beans and you will be rapunzel.
just take your pain and shove it down till you can swallow it without choking.

you are left standing by the river
everything is a contradiction and i hate the way
can you speak for me, baby? do you have any words left? is it all screams?
in my head you're screaming and kicking and begging me to help you.
i'm sorry.

you take your sadness and throw it away, but you're still standing by the river
i try to pretend i'm you, sometimes.
i pretend i feel you in my veins
and then everything burns and i wish i hated you,
i wish i had never met you, i wish you didn't exist.
and then everything burns and i wish you were still here,
i wish i had met you sooner, i wish i had held you longer.

when i try to pretend i'm you
i'm outside, in the grass, in the mud, in the trees.
i'm laughing, you're laughing, everyone's laughing.
no one's smiles are painted on, no one's mouths are full of lollipop red blood.
i'm happy, you're happy, everyone's happy.

when the old me meets the new you

your brown eyes, his green, my blue.
your slender hands unwinding my rib cage knots,
his lips breaking my puzzles into bite sized pieces--
my feet taking steps towards the door and hoping you don't notice.

your suitcases, his paper bags, my dirty laundry.
you carry me to bed when i fall asleep too early and tell me about dragons
that are too forgiving and get murdered by the evil prince.
my prince--him-- he takes me into the shower to wake me up,
tells me of the fires he fought to find me. he holds my hands so hard it hurts.
i wrap my broken fingers in scotch tape--
i run out before they're all back together.

your hardwood floors scratched by the dog you didn't even want,
his bathroom mirror cracked by the girl who wasn't supposed to spend the night
my doorbell never ringing before midnight--
but always waking me up in the morning.

a collection of love and hate caught between us

these are the things i know to be true.
no one ever really goes out with a bang,
guns blazing, heart racing.
no, everyone leaves with a whisper and a memory
and a regret that says
you will never make a difference and then you will die.

these are the things i know to be true.
no one ever writes poetry about the poets.
no one ever lets you bleed on them.
you will read messages written on ribcages,
spend your entire life trying to translate them into something that makes sense.
it never makes sense.

the most important thing you can do is die.
die for a reason, die with a bang, die with your guns blazing
die ready to face your fate.
these are the things i know to be true.

the blue-eyed boy and his death poem

here is the most important thing i've learned
everyone dies.
you say this, your mouth hanging open and cigarette dangling.
it doesn't make a pretty picture.
everyone dies, you repeat.

i nod, like i agree.

(everyone dies and then all you're left with is soot on your soul,
a half empty carton of cigarettes,
and no toilet paper.)

i don't even remember who's turn it was to buy toilet paper, you say
but i'm angry she didn't do it last.
the least she could have done is made sure i could wipe my ass when she left.

i nod, like i agree.

(everyone dies and then all you're left with is an empty hearth,
an empty bed, and a refrigerator full of bad lasagna)

the sunshine boy gets caught in the rain

if you wear a jean jacket that means you're a greaser.
i know who you are, you, the boy that smells like sunshine.
i hear you tell girls that smoking is good for their lungs
and whiskey is good for their liver.
and they believe you, for whatever reason,
that the biting feeling they get when they're with you
means they're having a good time.
when do you tell them they're dead?
when do you grab their hands and pull them in?
they only want you to kiss them,
but you're too busy looking forward
don't look away from the road or you might miss it--
don't look away from the road,
you missed it.
a thunderbolt across the sky was the only warning
telling you the storm is coming.

i'm tired of waiting for your storms to end

it's not like i wanted to die.
i just thought you might find me more interesting
with more blood on my outside than my inside.

you didn't find any version of me interesting, though,
did you?
i tore apart pieces of me and stitched them in other places to see what you thought
when my nose was on my forehead and my heart was on my sleeve.

you told me to go change, my shirt made me look frumpy.

figures.

all you ever write about is sex and killing yourself

you are tired.
you're not hungry, but you eat anyway because
that's what you must do to stay alive.
we tell you these things, in therapy.
nutrition is key to being happy, healthy, and healed.
you are none of these things.

you are the space between my thoughts
you are the space between my thighs
you are the space between everything that is good and supposed to happen
and everything ruined and black and ugly.

you are tired.
you tell the same story over and over again
about the first time you saw your dad cry,
sitting in the middle of a hospital cafeteria in nowhere ohio.
you always mention that you were eating green jello and i don't get it because--
who's favorite flavor of jello is green?

you are the space between your thoughts,
you are the space between your thighs,
you are the space between where everything fits together
and where everything falls apart.

self care is so mundane.
everything bloody just turns out to be red.

right before the end, close your eyes and

i.
you grab and you grab and you grab.
there's nothing to hold onto,
just smoke trapped in lungs,
scrubbing at your chest with the embers on the tip of your cigarette.
you grab hold of skin that rips from ribcages and tell someone about your
not-so earth shattering love.


ii.
you can breathe and breathe and breathe
but that doesn't change the fact that you're drowning
in yourself,
that you're absolutely dead.

get up the next day, with that same old smelly soul,
that same rotting mind
those same words stuck in the back of your throat, something you can't swallow away.
you're just as bad as you think you are.


iii.
they tell you, when you go to therapy,
there's an ocean braking in your ribs.
an ocean breaking your ribs.
an ocean.
your ribs are cracking and there's nothing you can do,
glue them back together,
get up, put your spine back in place.
stitch your heart back together.

ignore what they told you in therapy.


iv.

you hide the shotgun in your mouth.
you hide the pills in the blue sky and convince her they're stars.
you tell her, lips pressed to a bloody neck and eyes closed
your eyes are a galaxy, your lips are a constellation, i get lost in your planets
i get lost, get lost, lost.
she never gave you a map,
but somehow you always found your way home to her.

sorry, i know you hate it when i call you after i smoke

your skin is in my dreams.
i watch you, cover everything important to me with your body.
cover everything i care about until it's all you, it all comes back to you--
laying naked on my bed,
blotting out the flowers on the surface of a cotton blend walmart comforter.
maybe they're not dreams.

me, sitting on our porch swing.
you, walking away.
me, retracing your foot prints until they're my own.
you, holding my hand until it's nothing without something in it.

f*king psycho

it falls fast and it falls hard--
whether that's rain or love, i'm not really sure
but it still falls and suddenly all you're left with--
yes you, the boy with the golden hair and all the dreams--
is a bottle of pills or a leather jacket that smells like him

full stops and periods have no place here--
whether that's in poetry or in love, i don't know
but i do know that when he writes you newspaper letters
and tells you of dusty smiles from strangers that make him think of you, you'll believe him and then--
full stop.
the brakes of a train screaming as they stop inches from crashing into your brain.
dammit, sweetheart, i know you hoped they'd smash your skull.

the prayer of going nowhere going nowhere

a half mended soul is better than none at all

this is what you decide, at 3 am
staring yourself in the eye in the bathroom mirror
you don't look familiar to yourself anymore

the sound of your ribs clattering to the floor

after another night of pacing
after another night of tossing the bullet back and forth between your hands
after another night of remembering you have work in the morning and
shit

you gather up everything you have left

muster up your courage, your motivation, your sanity
slap the tape onto your heart for another night
leave the echoes of yourself in the hollow hole

the skeletons of every person you ever were clicking shut behind you

There is such a wealth of rich imagery here LadySpark! I just had a chance to read your last few poems and wow. This combo of how the speaker is in many of the poems dealing with relationships and then also contemplating death and how those two topics blur together in some points is really powerful to the point that some of these are uncomfortable to read, because they hit so hard. (and I mean that in a good way, they're just very emotional/impact heavy)

The April 10 poem for instance was really strong

your ribs are cracking and there's nothing you can do,
glue them back together,
get up, put your spine back in place.
stitch your heart back together.

ignore what they told you in therapy.

^ the way you were layering all the themes here, and then kept coming back to the bodily imagery in unexpected ways.

And then I also like that you're not afraid to disrupt the flow of a piece to have a really short line, or suddenly play with punctuation to bring attention to a line - creating a stilted feel for reading them at some points.

April 12th poem about punctuation/full-stops/relationships was also one of my favorites, since I love when people use the poem itself as a metaphor for the subject. Really good execution there too!

Looking forward to continuing to follow your poems!