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Young Writers Society


I Just Want To Feel Included



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Sun Apr 05, 2020 3:01 pm
Tenyo says...



15. It's Not Vanity If It's Culture


'We're not allowed,' Opal leant into Danny's ear and spoke with a quiet sternness as her fingers touched the shelf in the supermarket where a rainbow of lip glosses shone beneath a slanted mirror. Danny glanced up and down the isle to see where Ma' was. Izzy caught her stare instead and walked slowly towards us to investigate what she knew too well was Danny's look-out expression. She picked up a pink gloss and silently measured it up against Danny.

'You'll never get away with it,' she said and turned away. 'Come on troop.'

The other two hesitated, reluctant to be herded, but they both knew if they lingered too long Ma' would come looking and find them there.

When Izzy reached our mother she put her hand gently on the trolly.

'Ma, can I have some of my money? I want to buy a gift for you.'

'Don't be spending your money on me,' Ma' said, but Izzy wouldn't shift.

'Please Mama? I want to.'

'How much?'

'Can you give me ten? Save counting out change?'

Ma' reached into her purse and rummaged around until she found ten pounds and handed it over. 'Don't tell your sisters or they'll be wanting to spend money too.'

Izzy nodded and disappeared into the rest of the shop.

When we got home Izzy tentatively took a small tube of coloured lip balm out of her pocket and presented it to our mother.

'Izeah what is this?' Ma' said with a twinge of anger in her expression.

Izzy drew a deep breath. 'It's not really make-up, it's lip balm, for when your lips get dry in winter. It's... we were in class and we were talking about identity and the way we present ourselves and how we see ourselves and... you're a mother, but you're also a woman. This is so you can look after your skin and feel like you're a woman, and not just a mother.'

Ma' looked at her with as much scepticism as I'd ever seen in her and took the lip balm. She read the packaging as if it might tell her more, and eventually her expression softened. 'Thank you, sweetheart,' she said, with some vague sense of resolution, then kissed Izzy on the top of her head. 'Sometimes you girls grow up without me noticing.'

'You're welcome,' Izzy said in her best manners. Once the shopping was away with scurried out of the room. Upstairs Izzy grabbed Danny by the arm and stuffed a small, gleaming pink stick into her hand.

'What's this?' Danny whispered to her.

'She'll come around one day. Just don't let her find it.'

Izzy smiled and disappeared into their bedroom, leaving Danny standing in the hallway holding the gloss in her hand. Opal grinned.

'Clever,' she said.
We were born to be amazing.
  





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Sun Apr 05, 2020 3:41 pm
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Tenyo says...



16. The Way Girls Should Be Treated


I remember starkly when Ma's new boyfriend came into our lives; it was the day Da' left. I don't remember when he disappeared though. I have a vague memory from when I was in my early teens of him being around less and less, and then not being there at all. Their break up wasn't as explosive as before. Ma' sat us down one day and said he wouldn't be living with us any more, but that he would still come around, and he did for a long time after. Visits. Cups of tea. He even took us out every once in a while to get ice-cream.

'Young girls need to know how to be treated,' he used to say as we sat in the park. Izzy was usually busy with other things, mostly it was me and Opal, and Danny, when the thought of ice-cream coaxed her away from her headphones. Bees would hover around us as we ate, but at midday it was one of the only places that was still in the shade. 'That's why they need a good man around, so when you grow up you know how a man is supposed to treat you.'

If I could go back I would ask him why it was so important, but back then it was just another one of those things that meant something to a grown up, but not to us. I was already bored of boys, Opal held her heart behind a wall of steel and Danny... well, we didn't know which side of the fence Danny would be sitting on.

'Make sure he buys you flowers,' he said. 'And listens when you talk. Not like you're listening at all,' he chuckled to himself.

'I'm listening,' Opal said.

'Good. And if a man ever hits you, you walk away and you don't ever look back.'

I smiled. 'If a man ever hit Opal he'll wake up in a gutter somewhere.'

He shook his head. 'Not when you get older, men are stronger so they'll fight you. That's why you leave as soon as he even raises his fist, don't take any of it.'

Opal's face soured as if her ice-cream had turned to frogspawn. I think she resented the idea of being vulnerable to anyone. She spent the next six months begging our mother to take us to self defence classes, but every time Ma' gently told her that it was too expensive.

One day during one of our conversations- I don't remember who said it- only that some things got said and that grown-ups never see things the same way kids do.

Instead of a kind man who took us out for ice-cream every one in a while and taught us to take care of ourselves, the story warped into a man who took his ex-girlfriend's kids out, bought them treats and told them about how they need a good man, and how he would show them how a man treats a woman. Then how one of those girls took a sudden interest in self defence in case a man ever tried to hurt her.

His visits became less and less, we went fewer places, and then one day whilst we watched other kids playing with their parents in the park, the cold shadow of a summer cloud that passed over us reminded us that we were fatherless.
We were born to be amazing.
  





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Sun Apr 05, 2020 10:56 pm
Tenyo says...



17. English Names Part II


If you were to ask me, as a ten year old, if I ever lied to Mama I would say no, but I guess that's because it never felt like lying, and that's what made it so easy. My sisters and I told the truth to each other no matter what, but there were a lot of unspoken things that we did without even realising it.

This came to light one afternoon when Ma' was in her bedroom with the door open, and I came out into the hallway and into Danny's room.

'You alright?' She asked.

'I'm bored,' I told her. She sighed heavily.

'What do you want me to do about it?'

I shrugged. She shuffled along on her beanbag and made space for me. I came and sat at her side, keeping my knees tucked in to take up as little space as possible. Colours pinged across her tablet surrounding a spinning guitar that ended up in her inventory. Each round she had to tap the strings on a guitar in time to the music, and at the end a pixelated audience went wild.

'Can I have a go?'

She looked at me sternly and handed it over. Carefully she clipped one of the earphones over my ear and the music blurred in from my right. I winced and she turned down the volume.

'Try hard or you'll ruin my score.' She pushed into my space and leant over my shoulder to see what I was doing. I wasn't very good at the game, so whenever the solo parts came up she would push my hand out the way and her fingers would dance across the buttons until we got through it.

Izzy walked past the door three times before she swung around the corner and started to pick up and replace random objects.

'Danny have you moved my gym shoes? Danny!'

'Give me a second!' Danny hissed. When her solo was done she pushed the tablet back at me and looked up. 'I don't think they're going to be under my pencil case, do you?'

It was then that Izzy realised the ridiculousness of the case she was holding. She put it back on the table and squatted down with her arms over her head. 'It's a pair of trainers. I'm meeting Abby in five minutes. Where else could they have gone?'

'Has Opal borrowed them?'

'She might have taken them.' Izzy slumped down against the corner of the desk. It took a fraction of a second for a smile to beam across her face and she slid across the floor on her knees to retrieve her shoes from a pile of clutter that had been shoved under the bed. She pulled them on over her trainer socks and jumped up to leave.

When she got to the door she jumped. Mama stood there silently. Half of the time with us the languages blended together, but when Mama spoke in that broken English accent when we were in our house it always sounded jarring.

'Who is Danny?' She asked.

I turned to Danny, who didn't seem to have an answer. She started to blush under the heat of a secret none of us even knew we were keeping.

'It's a nickname people in school call me,' she said.

'And sisters as well? Do you not like the names I gave you?'

It felt unreasonable, the amount of emotional weight attached to it, and maybe there was. With Da' gone and us growing older, her second language pervaded our lives more and more. I guess maybe for her these names were a connection between us that still sounded like something familiar.

'Come on,' she said. 'Do you not like the names I gave you?'

'Stop it Ma',' Izzy shifted uncomfortably.

'“Stop it.” Is that what you say to your mother now. “Stop it?”' She may have reacted with less offence if we had told her that she was old and fat and had olives for eyeballs.

There wasn't much else to be said, mainly because we didn't want to say anything. Izzy was quiet for a while even after she got back. When I got into school on Monday my teacher pulled me aside gently and called me a name that sounded gaunt and flat. 'If your classmates get your name wrong, you have to teach them how to say it right, okay.'

I didn't. I liked Emma. Maybe for Ma', clinging to her old culture was somehow essential to her identity, but for us it was the best and safest we could do to learn to blend into our new one as much as possible. It was easy enough to not correct my classmates and let the mispronunciation slide. From the words that came out of Opal's mouth that evening I could guess that my sisters in high school had received a much coarser response from their peers. Izzy, our peaceful and passive, never really got over it.
We were born to be amazing.
  





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Tue Apr 07, 2020 8:12 pm
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alliyah says...



Spoiler! :
I'm loving that you're going for both NaPo and Camp NaNo! You are super ambitious Tenyo - and I would be stressed trying to do that!

I haven't been following your prose, but the poems you've posted have been nice, the ghosts one was my absolute favorite though.
"our hands grow wary
mind stilled
i feel like you
are all that's left of me

my essence locked
in your memory"

The idea of everything that you are just being reduced to another person's idea of you is haunting and? relatably how we think of people who have passed or just left, or who when we put our whole self-esteem wrapped into one person's perception. This made me think of something I learned in a class where we studied ancient greek poetry -> that it was a practice of the ancient greek's to sometimes refrain from disrupting the impression or "physical signs" of their passed loved-one after they died (like the impression in sheets, or smudges in mirrors, hair in a brush, old letters written, or footprints) because they thought those pieces could in a contradictory way remind them of their loved one's absence and continued presence. Such a poetic thought!

Looking forward to more poetry! Best of luck in your writing Ten! :)
you should know i am a time traveler &
there is no season as achingly temporary as now
but i have promised to return
  





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Thu Apr 09, 2020 12:42 am
Tenyo says...



18. How We Grew Up.


Let's talk about the things I don't want to talk about. The things that come after the sweet nostalgic childhood. When you grow up with sisters, they're all you have, and they're all you need. When they leave, then you lose all you have, and you lose all you need.

I was twelve Izeah was eighteen and finishing up college when there were still three of us left in school, and we missed her terribly. It was like she was off sick, only she wasn't getting better. We were overjoyed when she decided to take a year out before leaving, but it still left some void in us.

I was thirteen when she left and suddenly we were three. We didn't have an oldest sister any more, and Dineah found herself staring into that space ahead of her unsure of whether or not she could fill that space, or if she would have to fight for a new one. Now there was nobody between her and Ma', and she was the only thing between us and the world.

A year later Dineah left, bright eyed and excited, and somewhat spaced, as if not really acknowledging what was going to happen. Opal was sixteen and going into college, and I was fourteen, surrounded by boys and drama and hormonal teenagers. It was easier to be two than three. When we had big sisters we were the little ones, but we weren't all that little any more, and we were facing another two years against the world with our selves as our only allies. Izzy and Danny came back during the holidays, and when they did it was like we were all children again, but we could only be children for a short time. Opal and I knew that they would leave us again.

I was sixteen when Opal left, and Izzy came back. It had taken two years for Opal and I to accept ourselves as temporary orphans, switching from adults to children as our sisters came and went until we learned to smile when they needed us- and they did need us. We were home. With Izeah back for good and the two of us being together I couldn't be a child all of the time.

Instead we were both grown ups now, and Mama was the child we had to care for.

Izeah had been sixteen when I was barely turning nine and we were young, and we always wondered who I would grow up like. Izeah was the oldest, but the most gentle. Dineah was the most fearful, and yet was the one always challenging the world. Opal was the cruellest, and yet the most loyal. I was the youngest, and yet the fastest to grow up.

It was that day when Izeah and I stood in the doorways of our bedrooms with no sisters in between us that we looked eye to eye and found neither of us to be children than we felt like we had finally made it to the future we talked about when we were young, and, when Izeah finally realised that whilst she had lingered on the edge of that future before stepping into it, I had been dragged into it.
We were born to be amazing.
  





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Fri Apr 10, 2020 7:35 pm
Tenyo says...



19. The Wolf and the Sheep


Once there was a sheep and a wolf. The sheep would trot about the lowland areas near the river, feasting on the green grass. The wolf would prowl the area on the other side of the river, where the ground was rocking and hard. Then one day the villagers built a bridge.

'What about the sheep and the wolf?' They asked each other. 'What if the wolf comes over to the sheep's land and eats it?'

They worried terribly. Then one day the sheep wandered across the bridge. The villagers thought that the sheep would get eaten, but the wolf, prowling slowly with its head down, seemed mostly curious about the sheep. 'What do they call you?' The wolf asked.

'Sheep. What do they call you?'

'Wolf,' the wolf grunted.

The next day the sheep went over the bridge again, and this time the wolf came and nuzzled it. The day after, the sheep crossed over the bridge again and the sheep and the wolf lived peacefully together. The wolf took the sheep as it's friend, for a while.

'Why would I eat my friend?' The wolf would say as the villagers watched.

'Sometimes when the winter comes, we forget who our friends are,' the sheep said.

Unfortunately, a wolf will always be a wolf, and a sheep will always be a sheep.

When the winter months came there was less food to be found. The wolf complained to the sheep, 'there isn't enough food for me, but you can go through the snow to find the grass.'

'I do not like snow,' the sheep said.

Each day it got harder and harder, and the wolf got hungrier and hungrier, and the sheep got more and more tired of the cold. They complained, and they hungered, and they yearned.

'I'm so hungry,' the wolf would say.

'I'm so cold,' the sheep would say.

'But you can dig through the snow and eat the grass.'

'I do not like snow,' the sheep would say. 'It's too cold.'

The villagers watched to see which would win. The beast to conquer its nature, or nature to conquer the beast. The wolf and the sheep argued through the winter, until one day the wolf reared up it's heckles and growled at the sheep.

The sheep knew the time had come. The wolf was weak from hunger.

And so the sheep ate the wolf, and kept its fur to stay warm through the rest of the winter.
We were born to be amazing.
  





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Fri Apr 10, 2020 8:08 pm
Tenyo says...



20. The First Time.


My first kiss was when I was thirteen.

I had gone to a sleepover with some friends. There were five of us in her room, sitting around in our pyjamas with pop corn and sweets, and hyped up on fizzy fruit juice. We had been talking about boys in our school.

'If you could kiss anyone who would you pick?' Maise asked us. I thought about all of the boys in our class, but most of them were gross. They were immature. Most of them had been hit so hard by puberty it made their voices squeaky and their faces break out in spots. Instead I thought of the pictures I had seen in magazines of older men, although I don't think I wanted to kiss any of them either.

I brought my thoughts back and realised they had been discussing some of the boys in our class when something had broke them out into laughter.

'Never?' Ollie asked.

Maise shook her head. 'Never.'

Ollie glanced around the room until her eyes fell on one of the empty plastic bottles. She swept aside the papers in front of us and made space to put the bottle in the middle. 'Wanna play?'

Something in the pit of my stomach sunk. I remembered Danny and the girl she had met up with near the school gates. I remember the fascination, and the promise to keep her secret, but this was different. Here I was right in the middle of it and I suddenly became aware of how pale the pink walls where and how many of us there were in such a small space. Something about it felt wrong, like there was too much of something and I couldn't figure out what it was.

Ollie spun the bottle, once, then twice, and it landed on her and the girl next to her. They kissed on the lips and a wave of something made me feel sick. My cheeks started to burn.

The second time it spun to me. My heart pounded. Maise was next and an awful blush ran up my neck so hot that I felt like my skin was on fire. Maise leant over across the circle and seemed to put little thought into it. I wondered if they could hear my heart beating as loud as it was in my head. I gripped onto the cushion I was sitting on as Maise came towards me and kissed me firmly on the lips.

One. two. three seconds. She pushed in a little harder and I let go of the cushion and reached up. I don't know if I meant to push her away or hold on to her but my fingers found the top of her tee-shirt where I put my hand and I felt the edge of the bra at the bottom of my head.

When she returned to our seat the circle was silent.

'Huh,' Ollie said. She shrugged. 'Okay, there's only one person who hasn't kissed someone so this is to see who kisses her. Then we've all done it once.'

I felt like I simultaneously wanted to bounce off the walls and throw up in the waste paper bin. It was a while before anybody realised how quiet I had been.

'It's okay if you want to sleep first,' one of the girls said.

Ollie fell down to lie next to me and stroke my hair off my face. 'I'll make sure nobody draws on you,' she said in a voice that was uncharacteristically tender for her. She rubbed my shoulder gently and, true to her word, sat next to me like a guard at his post. I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep until my heart finally started to still and the sounds around me faded into static.
We were born to be amazing.
  





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Fri Apr 10, 2020 8:29 pm
Tenyo says...



21. The Second time.


We held hands as we walked through the park. Me and my boyfriend Codi as of one week ago. He had pulled me aside on our way into class one day to ask me out, and politely told me that it's okay to say no and he won't ask me again. It was sweet.

I think this was meant to be our first date. He had brought a bag with lunch in it and a blanket to sit on. We sat together under a tree that provided us little shade really, and ate strawberries and bread. I didn't like strawberries. I was still quite used to Mama's cooking, where everything was heavy and mildly spiced, and the only time we got strawberries was when it came in cake. They were tangy and sour but I didn't want to pass up the opportunity to eat something other than Ma's boiled jasmine rice.

We talked about birds, and television programmes. He liked being outside more. He talked about working towards some award, but he would have to find somewhere to volunteer, and about going on expeditions when he was younger. He lifted his shirt to show me the stark difference in colour between his yellow arms and his pale white belly.

When there was nobody around he said; 'have I been romantic enough to be allowed to kiss you now?'

'Is this romantic?' I asked. One of those moments when maybe I could have chosen different words. His expression sunk.

'You could be nicer about it.'

'No. I mean, yes! Like... that's not what I meant. This is nice.' I drew a deep breath, squinting against the sun. 'Yes you're allowed to kiss me.'

'You sure?'

'Yes.'

'Alright,' he looked at me up and down and awkwardly put his hand on the side of my cheek. It started with a light kiss, then turned into something longer. I wasn't sure if or when it would end, until the sound of tires whirred past and the bell dinged twice. He pulled away awkwardly.
'I guess we should get a room next time,' he said.

'Yeh.'

We never got a room. We went on two more dates before my attention dwindled and I returned to my usual occupations. He approached me in the hallway once, the romance drained from his eyes and the cool blueness of summer shade hovering over him. 'Do you want to break up?' He asked.

The question hadn't crossed my mind, but I didn't care either way and that could have been an answer enough.

'I don't mind,' I said.

'It doesn't work if you're not interested.'

'I don't think I am.'

'Alright.' He smiled and held out his hand. 'Let's break up.'

I smiled back and gave him the firmest handshake I could. 'Deal.'

We shook hands, and we held on. We held on for as long as we dared to before we both realised something strange was happening. 'Are we breaking up?'

'I think so,' I said.

He nodded and let go of my hand. We turned to continue down the hallway and he took my other hand again. 'I kind of like you not as a girlfriend,' he said. 'I think.'

'I think so too.'

We both preferred it that way, but I'll tell you a secret, spoilers for later. Codi and I got really good at breaking up with each other amiably. It would have been useful if either of us committed to it.
We were born to be amazing.
  





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Mon Apr 13, 2020 8:25 pm
Tenyo says...



21. Who Are You Now?

Once there was a boy called Agaris. He had been born in a country torn apart by war, and whilst other children lay in their beds starving he was learning to walk. They say he picked up a stick at the age of three, held it up to the sky and said 'with my sword I'll conquer nations.'

By five he was learning to fight, and could fight with the older boys. At eight, he donned himself in armour made from the fur of a beast he had helped to kill, and followed a group of soldiers out of the town. They expected he would fall behind and get tired, but he walked and walked until they knew that it was too far for him to walk back, and they gave him some of their food. He wouldn't be allowed to fight, but he followed.

At nine he took the heavy armour of a fallen soldier and fit it over his old armour, and went into battle when nobody was watching.

By sixteen he was a legend, not as a general or commander, but as a warrior. Stories spread of his valour and skill. By then he no longer hid his face, and rumours burned like wildfire of the boy who could walk into a battle bare chested and come out without a scratch on his skin.

One after another, legions fell before him. There was no battle he entered that he couldn't win.

Then alas he was summoned to the capital city on request of the king. When he turned up he was mistaken for a page boy, because nobody would believe who he had been. When he declared himself to be a great warrior he was thrown into the dungeon for lies and slander, and there he stayed for as long as he retained his claim.

He wasted away in the dungeon. His mind stayed sharp, but his skin grew dry and his muscles withered, until he became like a pile of moving bones. His face no longer looked the same, he was so thin.

Eventually he was thrown out onto the streets. He searched for work, but wasn't strong enough. He went to a barracks to enlist as a soldier again, but there was no sword that he could lift. Instead he resided in the slums, where he found a bed that he could lie in, and every day the kingsmen would come and hand out food. It was different from the battle field.

He was raised from childhood to fight for life, and here there was nothing to fight for at all, and yet life kept coming. So he stayed there.

At the age of twenty one, he used to tell stories to the local children of the battles that nobody believed in. At twenty five, he sang of his exploits on the street corners, clinging to the reminants of his own identity. At thirty, when the long winters hit, he finally found work in a tavern, where he would tell of great deeds that were assumed to just be stories, becoming more elaborate each time he told them.

At forty he was a story teller, as far as anyone could see. Recounting battles nobody could remember, and heroes that had faded to dust. At fifty he sat down finally to rest after one of his shifts and the tavern came under attack from a group of rogues with swords and axes. They were looking for somebody, and threatened to kill anyone who tried to stop them.

The old man picked up the sword of a youngster nearby and held it poised. For the first time in years he felt like he still had that war cry running through him, and though the sword trembled in his hands something in his mind was waking up.

'And who are you?' One of the rogues pointed his sword.

'Agaris of Resture. At my hand our nation won three wars by the time I was sixteen. I was killing soldiers in armour before even your parents were born.'

The rogue cared little for his words and lifted his sword to rest on his shoulder.

'Yes, old man,' he said. 'But who are you now?'
We were born to be amazing.
  








Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
— Mark Twain