Young Writers Society

#1
at least a square peg and a round hole can see the differences between

#1.5
how do you reconcile the little girl who wonders why everything is christmas trees and easter bunnies and never the chanukkah she grew up with or the matzo ball soup to die for that marks the passage of spring

with the adult who knows and sees the world shifting only slightly
questioning why an easter bunny is necessary for a child to draw

a flippant toss of blonde hair and an incredulous stare the only answer

#2
too jewish for the goyium (yet not enough to teach family tradition), never jewish enough for anyone else

#3
if we are the people of the book, i’ve got at least one aspect down.

#1
I remember when The towers fell and the News trickling slowly out told of a man who escaped the rubble by the light of his watch. For years I refused to wear anything other than a watch that would light up at night in the dark and looking back I wonder if that was everyone who lived through the the nightmare or if it's a unique to those who have that kind of trauma lived in their blood if it's unique to those who already deal with the inner generational trauma and the spiraling thoughts of who will hide me and escape plans for every unlikely situation and the juxtaposition of wanting to flee and wanting to hide and how you end up choosing one and falling into the patterns that you can never quite break. I remember when The towers fell and we had for one bright terrible moment a collective unity that hadn't been seen since the last Great war and I wonder how far we've fallen. I still always keep a light on me not to light the darkness but just find my way through it.

i almost remember the fallacy of normal:
too hot
baseball
can’t sleep
dry skin hair air
but not quite summer

ghost chicken lived to die -
eggs, disappearing daily
little pinpricks of should-have-been
re-met in the after, watching as
potential became breakfast.

#3
sometimes i’m not sure where the line
between me and normal
lies, beyond its existence -
how do you measure when you’re
just off step and never quite in tune

#4 (1.5?)
nineteen and a half years later
my wrist still glows
but does more than any cell phone
my middle school self could have dreamed
(but it still glows in the dark)

the plague years
it doesn’t matter what good you do
it’s never enough to appease

(why do we have to take care of everyone else
before we can see to ourselves?

#6
i've written "plague" so many times
it ceased being real

#7
we are told to
cut chains and cut out
and leave behind that which
does not spark joy,
but after all the trimming and changing and moving
letting go and giving up -
what do we have left
but afterthoughts.

april is warm sun and cold wind
hot soup and ice cream
[we always straddle the line between
observance and heresy)
and the fallacy of spring and beginnings
too soothing to question

I’m not sure what’s worse:
the squirrels chattering
or the dogs with squeaky toys.

is an ocean just the water and all that it hides
or does it remember the battles fought
breath stolen, tarnished once-animate icons
of empires lost to time and unyielding waves.

jam is sticky and spills on the side of the jars
lids get stuck and never cleaned
until they are jammed, empty, into a dishwasher
that needs three cycles to disintegrate
the rock-hard specks left behind.

there’s something mystical about looking out over unfathomable distances and knowing the edge of your sight isn’t the end, but the curve of what is possible
(sometimes it’s just illusions - ships floating on air and water where there is none - but isn’t that how stories start, planting seeds of the impossible that become real?)

there’s a bone-deep silence in an empty house at night that settles low (and doesn’t quite reach upper floors, but creeps closer the nearer the staircase lies) and leaves an edge that doesn’t quite cut, chased away only by sunlight and society.