Young Writers Society

April 13

|14.0|

Tentative Thought

Yesterday, a gift came in the mail.

Opening the package, it was a
microphone, from my brother of
all people, unexpected.

And I don't know how to be able to weave
the person I knew as my older sibling,

As the one I annoyed by
stepping in his engraved prints

And having to acknowledge everyone
he already had met and impressed

And I felt closer to a statue than
someone living their own life.

april 14

|15.0|

the keeper of sleep

i'm only awake because
an entity decided on taping
my eyelids open, wider than
the pan i used to cook
spaghetti in a few days ago.

and i think i could use all
of my drenched shirts and
sweat-crusted clothes to
season every meal i've had
this past week, all from
today, from this single day.

April 15

|16.0|

Midway

Fifteen days into April.

A few months ago,
I would have laughed about
not being too worried about
college admissions and about
my parents' combined health.

But now I think my parents
are disintegrating, cell by cell,
neuron by neuron, and I'm
trying to let go and not let
myself wither in the ever-
darkening background.

april 16

|17.0|

am i meant to feel weird

isn't it funny
sometimes
how a single
word,
a single
email in an inbox,

waiting to
be read
with a bit lip
and a trembling
hand

can bring
you to an instant,
unbelieving,
relieving shock
that leaves you
blinking in its
wake

but the words
"congratulations"
have never seemed
so sudden and
strange
and overwhelming
to you before.

April 17

|18.0|

{Rewrite of proper behavior}

Pierced Hopes

Your small form teeters on short legs,
but your bright, wide-eyes and tooth-
gaped smile, of light piercing through
a sky of squished clouds speak of a
life, of a tale, that experienced more
than having lady bugs tickle your nose
or coloring doodles on birthday cards.

Rather, your brain betrays your true
feelings, by the ways you think will
antagonize him the least, to please him,
to agree with what he says, or demands,
despite your petaled thoughts, blossoming
as you age, as you mature into your
own version of a sapling, desperate for
your own kind of sunlight, of pure love.

And you learned to tie your thoughts
to big balloons, all the same shade of
gray that belonged to storms not a
growing child's mind, but the strings
are frayed and they float, as precarious
as the shards of innocence, a moment
away from careening down, all from
a harsh breath, or sharpened words.

But you hope this will be worth being
able to take that first step outside of
this overbearing household and be able
to breathe fresh air without thinking
about the consequences or the yells
or the breathing down your neck when
even as they say they love you they
want something else in return.

april 18

|19.0|

can i leave?

maybe i’m meant to
be
grateful
that i’m still able to
stress
and
worry about schooling
even
after i’ve gotten into
a school

but they seem to hover
behind
me
above me, cloaked
in
front,
this shadow of a being
and
i want to plead with
them
to stop for a moment

yet then i have to
be
grateful of everything
i’ve
worked for, and can’t
complain
like they do every day
and
all
i can think about now
is
the glittering tease
of
freedom.

April 19

|20.0|

Cover or Hide

Can this music I'm strumming
to, a minimal, mediocre
mess of a cover,

cover up
the noise from downstairs,

the flung accusations from
someone resembling a lit
match than anything truthful

or fair in a fight that one side
is held back by the simple
notion of loving another

and I can find safe harbor
in a chat box with someone
far away, on
the other side of the coast.

april 20

|21.0|

unreachable

these poems
do not deserve titles
because they're
less than true forms

and would rather
dilute the page with
oozing thoughts
that drip onto a
blank canvas,

a splashing of
paints together,
than spin a wheel
of unused verbs
to make the words
comprehensible,

but the water turns
murky brown and
maybe i want to
be swept away in
this mud-forsaken
island i call my mind,
even as it swirls more,

ever so essential
when i'm caught
in a hole dug from inner
grimaces and outer
yells and i want
that middle ground
that says i can
leave one day.

April 21

|22.0|

Sleep is Good, but Not When I Can’t Sleep

Maybe I can’t sleep
because my brain knows that
I don’t deserve the rest, don’t
deserve to let my thoughts
spinning through the air
finally hit a wall and fall apart
until the next morning.

Maybe these intrusive thoughts
are actually my only friends
and it’s a better way to punish
myself by having them float
around my room with the
light from my phone shining
in my face.

Or maybe I’ve turned myself
into an unlucky insomniac
who stays up late hoping
that a message will flash
on the screen so I don’t
feel quite as alone, but
only for a moment.

That feeling only lasts
for a moment.

april 22

|23.0|

fake spots

i suppose the red on the pale canvas was my fault because
there wouldn’t be a mess if i wasn’t the one that started
drawing, sketching horizontal lines; after all, they’re only for
attention, not to really leave, even though now my breath
threatens to stop, yet the blood circles through my head.

April 23

|24.0|

Hopefully the Last Sleep Poem

The night is late enough
that I can hear static in
my ears, the kind I hear
only when I’m too quiet.

The outside, twinkling world
has rested their vast head on
their makeshift sky pillow and
breathed the cool air down.

If I swing my window open
to the pigment-free tunnel,
the wind could glide across
my face and hum goodnight.

april 24

|25.0|

this town holds a mystery written on its collar

the torn brochure mentioned a small metallic pendant,
ever shimmering to shield from prying eyes from looking
further inside, and swung off the throat of the mayor,
whose rites were sworn on ticking hearts and vintage
clocks that could only be wound once a day at midnight

(the name was never written across the bright pages of
the guide, which should have played a warning chime
in the back of your mind, but everyone was smiling at
you with warm embraces and slightly tinged-by-tea yellow
teeth and you wanted to stay, just for another minute)

the dirt-stained, crinkled-eyed citizens of this nameless
town convened in front of an old building (made of brick, as
if there was something to hide away) holding watches,
that reminded attendees that every secret had a time limit,

and when you strolled out of this town, your mind was newly
blank, unable to comprehend how pretty the green parks
looked, let alone the whispers at every corner of the street,
spoken by hidden figures and you can only capture a few words

(gray dripping down fingertips, clutching a warm, living, beating
object in your hand, encouraged to squeeze down harder so that
more liquid dribbled onto the washed out sidewalk, watering
the yellow dandelion weeds growing from cracks that you didn't
remember seeing, or stepping over, or even existing beforehand)

and that you couldn't wait to come back and visit (why don't
you remember the name? what was the name?) again next year,
waving farewell to the faces that you will soon forget and the
town that sparked a connection but soon dwindled into obscurity.

April 25

|26.0|

Sun Sap, Sleepy Smile

I think the sun is trying to melt
me, by a slow collection of sweat
drops by my forehead, soaking
my cap the moment I step outside.

And I think all the light beams are
snapping away at my energy levels,
like they’re the ones requiring the
heat produced by a simple conversion.

Yet I think I have to last as a drooping
mint-stained, red-velvet presses coleus
plant because I have signed my future
at a university to attend this next fall.

april 26

|27.0|

figurative tonsil stones

maybe if i choke on my pooling saliva
one more time all of my lies will tumble out
as stones that make my mouth rot inside
and melt into a river that flows a frothy
white, all to represent the ugly i am,
the ugly my heart beats every minute and
slightly harder every time i smile and i
imagine that my eyes appear frozen over

but the world doesn’t work that way and
i can’t be rid of my passionate, dysfunctional
thoughts that build up in the back of my throat,
curling against my tongue with every swallow
and i swear i can taste the filth that these words
produce, the bile that spreads like newly shaped
cavities and black dots over my molars, all
to remind me that i can’t cover up every secret.

April 27

|28.0|

The Water Man

I thought I was meant for the sea
before my breath caught on reefs
while the air bubbles left me
clawing at foolish beliefs

[I don't think you'll ever understand
because for all your days
you've been the water man

Though I wish I kept your gaze
until your face
slipped under the waves]

But your voice was so loud
that the first time that i swore
was when i fell from my cloud
above the cold tiles on the floor

[I don't think you'll ever understand
because for all your days
you've been the water man

Though I wish I kept your gaze
until your face
slipped under the waves]

I can still hear your laughter
echoing through every wall
and shake every rafter
not broken from my fall

[I don't think you'll ever understand
because for all your days
you've been the water man

Though I wish I kept your gaze
until your face
slipped under the waves.]