Young Writers Society

A tag for the remaining competitors, so you don't miss this message ~ @Stringbean @rida @lliyah @mothbroth @QueenMadrose @Plume @Buranko @lehmanf @looseleaf @ForeverYoung299 @AlmostImmortal @niteowl @SilverNight @Rook @InuYosha @Shady

what is yours is mine too.
somewhere along the fault-lines,
i had internalized the vast vacancy
and how it has made its space in you.
honour takes its seat in my heart.
if you will cry yourself a sea,
fill my cup; a perpetuity
of grief upon this soul.

be kind, but not to yourself.

tide has risen its heaving head --
give this a chance; these bodies of
iron and salt are only borrowed.
the tide will return, and
the dead sea and its despair
keep us making promises
to the impression of company.

be kind. spare some for yourself.

there is something
waiting in the depths for you;
i will find you just as you find me.

tide pools

i feel sometimes like i was born in a tide pool; my whole existence carved out of an overzealous wave, maybe a perfectly timed hurricane that allowed my shallow world to form; an eco-system preserved from a perfect-unknowing of the deepness of the ocean, and an ignorance of every way that seawater can fill your lungs.

i have a habit of collecting photos of my parents like sea-shells still attached to hermit crabs, searching their faces for some sign they were in love or knew that they weren't. i think everyone with divorced parents, must at some point try to discern the exact moment their family seams started to become thread-bare, like someone retracing their steps to find out where they forgot their keys, only i'm walking in circles trying to retrace what love is or maybe only who i might be, but i am used to thinking the entire world could be contained in an oyster shell; so there's nothing familiar here. and these shells are always stirring, and i only know that memory is unreliable.

i wonder sometimes what a hatchling dove must feel as she plummets from her nest to the ground, is it only fear of falling that teaches birds to fly; just the push of gravity that reminds us to breathe – i worry that i’m still falling; drowning, drowning, drowning and wonder if all this echoed anxious-yearning disguised as treading water is a necessary instinct of survival or if one day i will learn to swim or fly properly, or if we all only live in resistance or longing to where we have been - the way that sea glass forms from year after year of spitting out the sand and finding home again.

(^ prose poem so where the line breaks fall do not matter, apart from there being 3 stanzas <3)

@Stringbean @rida @lliyah @mothbroth @QueenMadrose @Plume @Buranko @lehmanf @looseleaf @ForeverYoung299 @AlmostImmortal @niteowl @SilverNight @Rook @InuYosha @Shady

you light a match and the flame goes out:
that’s what you get for turning back halfway to the stars
and surrendering to fall into orbit instead.

we still somehow wake up to the smoke alarm
thinking that everything’s burned down again,
but it’s just the fire in my lungs living off my oxygen.
now i’m dreaming about spontaneous combustion
and indigo reflections in gasoline spills,
everything covered in dust— you and i stay up to watch
a sleeping world at the end of its life.
(if i hold my breath, it’ll go out, right? right?)

i light a match and the flame goes out:
that’s what i get for forgetting our rocket fuel
and powering through with denial instead.

crushed
pine

needles

i watch the sun spit on the sky turning it red and golden and pink on the peripheral of my vision

crushed
pine
needles

i find a dead pigeon its wings crooked angles spread open its mouth gaping its eyes empty as sunlight turns its wings purple blue gold

crushed
pine
needles

i found pine needles scattered on the road like hair in kashmir first and i wonder if the needles paved a new road

crushed
pine
needles

eventually this poem has to end i tell myself as i lead you astray with too many pine needles making roads that lead to nowhere

crushed
pine
needles

my mother tells me about pakdandis as we comb the mountains hair with our feet she tells me they are forest paths places where the dust caves in and dandelions grow from the edges and pine needles like snow scatter

crushed
pine
needles

i find today that emotions ride down genetics and my fear of spiders isn’t my own i am made of my ancestors and i think all this as i comb through my hair watch them scatter on the floor like pine needles and my tongue rolls and lashes as i chew the word:

/ / heritage / /

(crushed
pine
needles)

9. i am pale for a reason

we love the sun
and yet it kills us,
we want kisses
and yet they burn us.

i used SPF 70 sunscreen that summer,
but of course, i'd burn anyway
because i never had the foresight
to re-apply often,
or maybe i just wanted my outside
to feel like my insides when i thought of you.

like sunshine, kisses
look nice on the TV screen.
i watch alone as the feisty heroine
tames the handsome rogue
and i sigh as i remember
when i fancied myself the main character
who would get that earth-shattering kiss.

but that summer,
as i kissed so many not-you's in dark sweaty nightclubs
my physiology drawing me in
to anyone who would have me,
(if only for a moment, if only until they're sober)
my higher mind burned with rage
--this is dirty, disloyal, wrong.

i haven't needed sunscreen in years
because i've chosen to remain inside
so as not to absorb the rays, the pain.
likewise, i haven't kissed
because i'm still that fool who wants
more than she deserves
so i'm better off leaving
the kisses and sunshine on movie sets.

but maybe i can't stay unburnt forever.
maybe it's time to buy
sunscreen and lipstick again.

I’m injecting myself with poison again.
I hold the needle in my dirty hands.
The syringe is filled with silver,
and my veins are filled with fire.
Black eats away the edges of my vision.
My knees sway in circles.
When I fall, a vial slips from my fingers.
It crashes to the floor, shattering,
like a priceless porcelain vase from Hell.
It forms a halo around my ashen face.
The syringe sticks from my forearm,
a conquering flag in my flesh.

That white flash takes over my stomach,
crawling up the ladder of my esophagus,
and building its morgue on my tongue.
My hands won’t stop shaking.
The cry of my muscles reaches a crescendo:
“Take flight, little coward,
find your home in a poisoned needle.
Mourn all of the things you could be,
all of the things you kill with your little glass vials.”
I listen like I always do, I plunge the syringe
and I scream as if I am the victim.

I ball my hands into tight fists
and try to keep them in my pockets.
I have tried handcuffs, shackles, and more,
but my fingers ache for the weight of a needle.
And my veins feel strangely hollow without the hurt.
My mother cries beside me, clutching my hand.
“What happened to you, my child?
Your hair is falling out and your strength is fading.
Why are you doing this to yourself?”
My throat seals itself shut like a tomb.

Just as stars dot the woodland sky,
track marks choke my bloody arms.
My veins weep in my wrapping paper skin,
and my lungs stutter under this assault.
“What have we done to deserve this?
Your heart has lost its voice,
and your brain only dreams of its destruction.”
I know this, I hear the way it begs for the end.
And God, I can’t bear to stop it.

I tried locking my vials in a steel cabinet,
and I threw away the cursed key.
But only an hour later, I clawed at the metal doors
until my fingernails clattered to the floor.
I traced my desperation in blood
and vomited my hysterical pleas.
I dug up my roses, grabbing them by their thorns,
but the key was lost to the roots and mulch.

"Thank God for losing your key,"
my logic and reason sang.
"Now your heart has time to recover.
Isn't this what you've always wanted?"
And I wish I could agree, I truly do,
but as I shave my fingertips to open the doors,
I'm just glad to have my vials back in my hands.

And on my floor, bleeding and poisoned,
Swimming in and out of a murky sea,
ebbing and flowing consciousness,
dragging me along the shore.
I can feel my tongue swell,
and my brain liquifies with ache.

And, in my moments of blinding pain,
a sigh of bliss leaves my failing lungs,
as I fall backwards onto my sweat-soaked carpet.
And I feel terrible, in my arsenic-induced haze,
because it feels awfully good to hurt.

And everyone who loves me mourns
because of everything I've lost.
I don't know how to tell them
that I'm the one who destroyed it all.

How do I explain this twisted obsession
when everyone else stares in horror?
How do I stop craving self-mutilation?

But even so, I savor the burning in my veins
and settle into the destructive familiarity.

I'm injecting myself with poison again.

The Sun shines like a chariot drawn across the heavens above
The sky bright and blue shimmers as birds fly through
Clouds of white and stark little rosettes of light

But amid the peace a cackle fumes
And the sunlight blooms a gloomy grey
As big thunderheads tirade into the light's hallways

Like a hissing serpent lightning forks across the heavens
And a single teardrop falls
A glimmering raindrop plops

A child cries
A cloud shivers and shouts a mighty whisper







A gumdrop strewn from a packet
A hailstone freezing inside layers of dusty water
A happy child stares at

The bear's demise
An old hag tumbling through the thundering skies







Crawling through the window
The waterdrop is coming
Flower, keeper of your petals, cupping tiny ponds

Will a teardrop ever slip out
Don't let the blackbirds sip at what you've brought her







Will you come out to play
Then watch me fly away