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Young Writers Society


cherry coke and the indiscriminate hippie archives



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63 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 723
Reviews: 63
Fri Apr 05, 2019 5:35 pm
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amelie says...



I never do NaPo, but I figured I’d chime in this year. Better late than never; I’ll try to make up for the days I’ve missed.
  





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63 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 723
Reviews: 63
Fri Apr 05, 2019 5:37 pm
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amelie says...



1.

cancer

you had cancer. i didn’t know
until it was all gone.
you don’t talk much. i know this
about you, but it’s hard
to be this in love with you
and all of your secrets.

cheer up. you mope around
with all of your mysteries
and act like i’ll never understand.
i want to understand. so, talk to me-
cope with the courage.
Last edited by amelie on Sat Apr 06, 2019 3:36 am, edited 2 times in total.
  





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63 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 723
Reviews: 63
Fri Apr 05, 2019 11:54 pm
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amelie says...



2.

bleach

you washed away the blood with bleach, scrubbing hard
and letting it seep into the floorboards.
when it was simple like this. when i could reach out
and touch you. when the misty moonlit eyes of the hour were longer
and more forgiving.
it’s hard to sleep now.
in the car, i had a dream about my step sister and her big, beautiful eyes.
sunlight came streaming through the back seat window
like the projector beams at the film fest
where you lost your mind screaming
and i lost my left shoe
in the soggy, wet ground.
you washed away the mud with the hose,
cold and depressing
letting the dirt break apart between your toes.
when you stopped me in the middle of the street
to let me hop on your back
and i saw the whole world from up there.
i regret kissing you,
but you’re glad we did it.
i keep my guard up now, and i can tell
that it scares you.
Last edited by amelie on Sat Apr 06, 2019 3:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
  





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63 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 723
Reviews: 63
Sat Apr 06, 2019 12:02 am
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amelie says...



3.

dirty old man

his lungs were too big for cigarettes,
so he smoked cigars
fumbling around with them in his fingers
with a smug look on his face.
the polk a dot shirt in the front row
had 800 tiny white spots all over.
he counted them carefully, shaking his finger
after each new number.
the audience kept up with him, too.
that whole audience
and the drunk guys in the back,
just laughing their asses off.

everybody knew him in california, everybody knew him
in the underground.

they burried him shortly
after he died
in a polk a dot shirt with little white spots
all over.
Last edited by amelie on Sat Apr 06, 2019 3:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
  





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63 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 723
Reviews: 63
Sat Apr 06, 2019 3:15 am
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amelie says...



4.

LeBron James

people say that if you can be happy in ohio,
you can be happy anywhere.
but i was so sad in michigan
cloudy and industrial;
the air felt poisonous.

the midwest isn’t quite so boring
once you can look past all the drifters,
the ghost towns and burnt-out small towns.
a lack of opportunity, we get over-looked.
all our parents are divorced,
we’ve all been molested,
and chicago smells like shit.

instead of vegans, we have opioid addicts. stay skinny, Mini!

LeBron James is a cool guy though, right?
Last edited by amelie on Sat Apr 06, 2019 3:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
  





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63 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 723
Reviews: 63
Sat Apr 06, 2019 3:33 am
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amelie says...



5.

kenny

kenny comes to my house
and slides a grenade pin under my door.
i sense his lingering presence on the other side
and yet unspoken, i’m aware that he senses me, too.

holding the pin in my hand, the metal loop
wrapped around my finger
i’m still.
i know that this pin was born of chaos.
i know that the bomb was alive in the sand dunes.
but it doesn’t make any difference to me.

kenny breaks my window at night
and climbs through in a panic.
crying on my chest, he says he’s sorry.
they’re chasing him again
and he’s on the run.
i hide him in the cupboards
until the morning.
  





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63 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 723
Reviews: 63
Sat Apr 06, 2019 3:05 pm
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amelie says...



6.

grounded

up in the tree by your window. watching the pocket knife I gave you
chip away at the bark. we didn’t talk about much, but it was enough to keep us going.
I felt it in my head; I was too heavy
to float away. I was there. I was present,
and it felt good for a change.

when we sat at the table after a rough couple of days
and I realized, this is how it’s going to be from now on.
I’ll tell you about the prison yard, and you’ll shake your head and sigh,
saying how you wish it was you.
I felt it in my feet, too heavy
to take a step forward. so you stayed behind
and waited it out with me.

when I told you enough was enough. I broke it off in September
and you were left with too many things to remember me by. that part wasn’t my fault.
it had been a rough couple of months and my head wasn’t healing
any better than before. I felt it in my eyes,
too focused to even blink; too sore to shed a tear. You knew this was coming,
but you didn’t know when. At least this answers one question for you.
One of the many questions you ask
that I have no answer for. Why I can’t love you anymore.
Why I’m always floating. Why I stack the cups so high. I don’t know.
and my feet.
they were still too heavy to lift. I told you,
“go ahead. go on without me.”
and so you proceeded as I stayed behind. but somehow
it still feels like I was the one who walked away. if I did, how far did I go
and where? did I ever stop to rest?

my body cooled down from the fire.
  





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63 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 723
Reviews: 63
Mon Apr 08, 2019 2:01 am
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amelie says...



7.

bulldoze

poetry and bones;
the mosquitoes fly by fast.
earth in my ears, my eyes,
my nose.
oh, this world’s gone bad

we’re pulling on the hairs of a lion’s mane;
we’re fighting for equality with t-shirts.

oh, it’s hard not to laugh

a cardinal perched herself
on the lamp post
and tumbled to her death.

oh, no matter how hard we try.
Last edited by amelie on Tue Apr 09, 2019 2:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
  





User avatar
63 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 723
Reviews: 63
Tue Apr 09, 2019 2:33 am
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amelie says...



8.

“limits”

i want it bad tonight.
you saw me cry at the table and held me
when i gave up trying.
you said baby
i have lungs, and they’re pushing up against the walls
of my rib cage.
baby, is it too much to ask?
can i kiss you even though i don’t want to?
can we make it all work somehow?

i have limits. i’m a dove in a cage,
i’m a girl with a crush.

when did all of our friends
start talking like they do now?
everything’s a competition- baby,
will we ever make it to the finish line?

i’ll want it worse tomorrow.
  





User avatar
63 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 723
Reviews: 63
Tue Apr 09, 2019 4:56 pm
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amelie says...



9.

euthanasia for the elderly

i remember the night i snuck into your bed
resting my head on your arm, saying
how i was going to die young at the feet of the man.

you said you wanted a dog. a golden retriever
to sit on our little yellow porch.
you said that
we were gonna grow old together in youngstown.

i didn’t believe it for a second, but it was a nice thought.
i just wanted to die already.

sick of the
chipping away at concrete
holding myself when you’re not around
and your rock ‘n roll boy bands.

you called me baby. i didn’t like it then;
i was tough.
i shrunk in size when dad wrecked the car.
i ate the house to keep it safe inside.

“this is our decision, to live fast and die young”
so life ends just as it began
and I’m over it already.
  





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63 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 723
Reviews: 63
Sat Apr 13, 2019 9:20 pm
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amelie says...



10.

You look at me laughing
With liquid in your mouth.
Material look in your eyes,
Pointless as a pellegrino water.
The first aid kit just doesn’t cut it for you,
You bleed all over

Tired and anemic, resonate
With the crows on the flagpole.
Crumble to bits when I touch you
Out of sorts in the morning,
Pale as light by the evening.

And if you die in the end,
Will it all be worth it
Or will I forget you by the time
I drive away? I’ll just hang up
And say I’m sorry
And hope that I never have to see you again
So sick and broken.
  





User avatar
63 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 723
Reviews: 63
Sat Apr 13, 2019 9:45 pm
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amelie says...



11.

Daniel (Gustavo)

Requiem for a bank robber,
Quick-witted story-teller
Stoked to watch the world burn
Listen to his stomach churn
If you call his name, his head turns
Quick enough to snap.
But it never does though,
Ask him all the fists he’s thrown
Rougher than an earthquake
Dead weight, what a waste
Tougher than a rattlesnake
Act fast or contemplate
Fight hard, earn money
Hang loose and talk funny
Cruise slow, bite deep
Throw it all away and sleep
Daniel was a sick runner
Acted tough but ran from thunder
Hid his head under the covers
Fearful of his own mother
Grew up in a cardboard box
Made money picking locks
Never owned a pair of socks
Was entertained just throwing rocks
Robbed a bank, died full-stop
No one heard his body drop
  





User avatar
63 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 723
Reviews: 63
Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:59 am
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amelie says...



12.

Xenia, Ohio. Wake me up when it’s all over.

i want to float
up in a tornado of dirt
and dust and teeth.
i want to cling to a bolted
metal staircase
for my life
without a single thought
of what has been or
what could have been
in my short little life
in ohio.

xenia ohio, the second biggest tragedy
of the 20th century.
“a tornado hasn’t touched down
in canal fulton in years,”
Tanner says. John agrees
Aiden is indifferent.

i want to throw myself
in front of a ten-ton truck
just to see what i would think about
in my last seconds alive.
i don’t have a death wish, i just wish
i were dead
just to know
and to feel.
to be stripped of all the bullshit
in my life
to think about nothing but the present
and to laugh at all of the things
that used to worry me.
  





User avatar
63 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 723
Reviews: 63
Thu Apr 18, 2019 4:51 am
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amelie says...



13.

stacy

when stacy fell pregnant
all those years ago
she didn’t run from home
she was 16 and unsure
of where she could go
her dad was a sick and
twisted guy
who touched her when
she was young and
shit all over the ground
she walked on
he was all mad that
she had been screwing around
with some senior guy from
the school
but when she had the baby
he let go of his anger
and stepped up to care
for it her brother was 27
when he had his first child
and her other brother
lived alone and never got married
stacy got all twisted and tied
to men who could never take
care of her and in the
midst of her horrible life
she upheld a strong blissful
character.
when i sit down and talk
to stacy she’s distant and
just isn’t there with me
i’ve tried to help her out
talking but she just isn’t
one for poetry stacy became
and grandma when she
was somewhere in her 30s
and when my uncles
pick on her for being a grandma
so young she’ll laugh and say
“it just doesn’t bother me.”
  





User avatar
63 Reviews



Gender: Female
Points: 723
Reviews: 63
Sun Apr 21, 2019 3:12 am
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amelie says...



14.

take it or leave it

Sunday morning
I woke up to a spider on the ceiling
Above my head. I blinked at her
And she bit back.
The neighbors were locked
Out of their car again. I shrugged
And said I’m sorry, I have somewhere
To go. I drove to the bridge
And threw my keys into the water.
I left the car there, too. Just left it.
I couldn’t believe myself. I made it
To the portage lakes off ramp,
Home to the homeless and jobless,
Gathered there
In search of some happy cash
For their crappy lives.
A man in a speedo approached me
And I felt uneasy. He wanted cash
But I shrugged
And said I’m sorry, I have problems
Of my own, bud. I’ve got shit to sort out
And I need all I’ve got. He spit on the ground
And pretended to cry
As I walked off
Down the road,
Far from home with nowhere to go.
  








“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents!”
— Little Women