Young Writers Society

vii. we are (not) yet angry

You were all lambs
In this wide, wide world.
We had filled you up
With food and air
And that mysterious stuff
You call consciousness.
(We call it magic and myths
Come to life.)

Remember to pay your respects.
We have stayed
Awake and alert for you,
Let you trespass all over our territory
Because you all multiplied.
You poisoned us with the idea
Of the future and glory
When we cared only
About now and the small pleasures
(We are such a small dot in such
A wide, wide world. You fail to
Understand that oblivion is
Our fate.) And then you only stopped
to think when you felt death
Lace your breath.

Don’t be that ungrateful wretch
Who shrugs us off.
Haven’t you asked for enough?
(We are silent and complicit now,
But our roar of pain and rage
Will eventually consume you whole.)

viii. a neverending search

at night, the earth plucks at
its strings, letting each note drop
like a whispered thought. I swore
I could have seen the trees
swaying in a slow adagio, but
the wind always shouts and shoves.

we cannot buy magic. it hides everywhere:
in the brightest meadows. the darkest alleys.
the cliched calm before the storm.
and the thrill of uncertainty.

my heart strains with yearning
to be pulled along on this wild life,
but how is it possible when
the roar of the storm and the melody
of the land is the same to me?

PrincessInk, I love your imagery and the musical way you personify nature. You've had such beautiful and organic imagery all throughout your poetry this month, and once again it shines here. I love the line "the earth plucks at/its strings" and I love the question you pose at the end about the storm and melody of the land being the same to you. Very beautiful question that is beautifully worded and it was the perfect note of uncertainty to end your poem on.

ix. no one saw the dawn that day

I tore the tapestry off the wall yesterday,
fingers sharp talons, digging, digging,
always digging for their assailant.

That night, I dreamed of the tattered
remains: all the threads flying behind me
like a colony as I paddled my way west

across the endless sea. No one saw the dawn
that day: the news anchors said
a flock of birds had covered the sun like flags.

x. where misplaced moments are found

I would like to think
there is a lost and found bin
for misplaced moments.

It would be snugly hidden
in the space between stars
and nothingness,
where rules do not apply:

no gravity, no electromagnetic waves,
only the aching, dying
heartbeat of a bud
that never bloomed.