Young Writers Society

1. On the waterfront green waves scrub the shoreline.
2. Bones cracked under the weight of dreams and hopes and bags of tobacco.
3. I find my mind drifting sometimes in awe of the colour
4. I think the moon must have woven a hundred thousand spider silk circles
5. We slept side by side in the same chains, you and I.
6. Worn out shoes are like old, familiar friends.
7. Loyalty is easier when you're loyal only to one man,
8.We slept on grass and sand that first night.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.

On the waterfront
Green waves
Scrub the shoreline.

Summer sand is the colour
of your hair,
Sea glass like your eyes, blinking.
I skip across the rocks
and trip over your thoughts.

Seaweed whispers
Like your voice when you said
The scariest things,
Of fighting and fear and revolution.

Salt in blisters reminds me
Of the number
They burned into your skin.

Bones cracked under the weight
of dreams and hopes
and bags of tobacco.
On rainy days the dirt
painted our bare backs.

There's a memory drifting,
of when my knees hit the ground,
The pain stabbed through me.
You picked my load up like you could carry
the whole world
on those protruding shoulders.

You paused and looked up against the midday glow,
at that flag
as if it was yours to burn.
I saw the blood on your palms
turn to callouses,
and wondered what grew
beneath that cotton-flower heart.

I find my mind drifting sometimes,
In awe
of the colour
Of coal, and soot stains.
Even at night the flickers of sunburn in my eyes
Turn the black to red.

But coal is absent of all colour,
Smooth edges and shin split fractures
Mark the chunks.
If I could I'd paint the whole world
As black as coal,

So I could finally have
Enough darkness,
That I could imagine you.

I think the moon must have woven
A hundred thousand spider silk circles
Around you and I,
Before, in its glow, I read
Through your weather beaten pages
To finally find your vices.

You were iron, a fortress,
Of towers and chains
And blasting cannons.

But still your landscape was marred
With fissures, your fields torn
And rivers salted
From battles you never lost.

Until the fight was over
Until we sat in the quiet, coppery sound,
Of water trickling, beneath that silver silk moon,
Searching myself,

To find all my wounds to be
Faded, pear-coloured bruises
And the outcome of every battle I lost
Was scored against your skin.

We slept side by side
In the same chains
You and I,
On a damp wood floor.
The clouds drifted
in white and blue
through cracks in the woodwork.

We forget the smell of iron
But the must and stale cloth becomes home,
And you; sweat and rope and soured fruit.

The rising, rocking, sluicing sound of water
Knocking against the hull
Became the ghosts that haunted us.

I wasn't scared,
But you wrapped yourself around me anyway
Because you needed something to protect.

Worn out shoes
Are like old, familiar friends
When integrity
Is all you have left.

Loyalty is easier
When you're loyal only to one man,
Or one master.

Nobody is ever loyal to one master.
A dog won't starve
Before it turns;
Hunger is a greater tyrant.

That's why those shackles felt so heavy.
When wild dogs will bleed
And choke on their own
Stubborn sense of liberty
Before they'll starve,
Human slaves bow to the hands that feed them.

So where did your loyalties lie?
Never to your masters.
You would have starved first, like a dog.
The wickedness of the deep blue
Coursed through you,
A heart that beat like the awful sound
Of a hull being shattered by a rogue wave.

To the gunport, never the nest;
The cannon, never the sail.
To the violence, you pledged yourself.
Hell would turn to water
Before you bowed to anything less.

We slept on grass and sand
that first night.
The morning light clawed at our eyes,
and hunger curdled in our bellies.

Freedom smells sweet,
but it tastes like grit.
No fish dart beneath its surface.
No fruit grow from its branches.

It's the price we pay, you said.
You climbed to your feet, seaweed
Dripping from your boots,
Dragging you back to the depths.

You turned back, and the barrel
Of a cocked gun stared
Straight through my head.
I should have flinched, but I didn't.

Wet powder won't shoot, you said,
as the metal pressed into my palm.
You dropped the bullets at my feet
And I counted to myself how many lives

I had left.