Young Writers Society

To All My Oceans Frozen Over
Warning: Reference to suicide ideation. Please read carefully.

I suppose it’s my fault for not reaching out,
for being, forgive the pun, so cold-shouldered.
But when you’re shoved into the far recesses,
you don’t exactly feel welcome.
It’s cold out here.
All of my oceans have frozen over,
my rings are chattering with frostbite,
and I long to know what it feels like
to feel home.
Because home has never felt warm,
and I have never felt wanted,
and this home isn’t home to me.
But I suppose that’s my fault for hanging so far back,
for being beyond Saturn’s touch.
But I just long to feel warm for a moment,
to sublimate into something tolerable.
My clothes are made of ice,
and I have forgotten what my mother looks like.
She’s nothing but light at the end of the line,
but she feels light years away from me.
I do handstands for her across the orbital plane,
but she never spares a glance my way.
My hands hurt.
The solar wind bites at my face,
marking me in green bruises,
making me ache.
And the distance from everything I have ever known,
freezes my oceans over,
coats my clothes in ice,
makes me feel so alone that I feel sick.
But that’s my fault for not reaching out.
Don’t worry about me.
I’ll be in the corner of your galaxy,
forming ice crystals in my skies,
and wishing they were sharp enough
to ease the pain.

A Letter to Mother
Don't worry about me, Mother,
I am perfectly content,
watching the Kuiper Belt behind me,
living in ice and methane.
Warmth is for the aestorid kingdom,
and I have never wished to switch.

Yes I know my rings are crumbling.
But don’t worry about me, Mother.
I know my riches are crumbling to ash,
and my silver is tarnishing.
My gold will evaporate,
but I will still remain.

Yes I know my skies are dark,
and I am forever in twilight.
But don’t worry about me, Mother.
I don’t need light to see your love
trickling across our comfortable home.
I can still see your pinprick in my skies.

Yes I know I am the furthest child,
and you have forgotten my face,
and my voice is barely a hazy memory.
But don’t worry about me, Mother.
I’m still here, orbiting your embrace,
talking as if you could hear me.

Yes I know I riddled with wind storms,
made with ice and slush,
too freezing to even look at,
and frozen through the summer.
But don’t worry about me, Mother.
I don’t mind the black of frostbite anymore.

Yes I know no one speaks to me,
Jupiter hates themselves too much,
Saturn is disgusted by everyone else.
Uranus is too busy feeling isolated,
and that leaves me watching their retrograde.
But don’t worry about me, Mother.

With Impatience and Love
My love,
I have been out of your arms
for twenty-four long years.
You are the subject of every dream,
the two of us twirling after dusk
no one but our audience of stars.
My love,
the road home is far too long.
I am drifting homeless,
simply tripping on comet tails,
wishing I could be home.
You are my home, my love.
My love,
my saccharine daydream,
my glorious escape,
I am counting down the days.
The days until I am home again,
and my head is against your azure chest,
and I don’t have to think to breathe.
My love,
two hundred years is nothing
when you are at the end of the road.
But my love,
two hundred years is serrated agony
when it’s keeping me away from you.
I will gladly sit and let the time pass by,
but I will be bleeding through every second.
My love,
you will never have to fear if I am waiting.
I am holding my breath,
trembling, turning blue with the effort,
and trusting you’re waiting just the same.
My love,
my darling,
my Neptune.
I love you and I am so excited to see you.

In Protest of Being Ignored
I really don’t deserve this.
I know, I know,
you don’t want to hear this.
I’m just a moon,
a pathetic child.
And you’re the all-powerful sun,
far too busy to listen to a hunk of rock,
orbiting another much more important ball of gas.
Well, excuse my tone,
my attitude,
my insolence,
but I have nothing but apathy for your time.
Because I am not just a moon,
a pathetic child.
I am bigger than Mercury,
and he is more important than me.
Why?
Because he’s not orbiting someone else?
Because he’s close enough to kiss you?
Well, I don’t care.
I deserve the same recognition.
I have the potential for life
Does Mercury have that?
Does Venus have that?
Does Jupiter
the planet I’m orbiting,
do they have that?
But please, keep calling me just a moon,
just a pathetic child,
just a hunk of rock
orbiting a much more important ball of gas.
When I am a world in my own right!
With oceans and ice caps!
How is your treatment fair?
Why am I so insignificant?
My name is Ganymede,
and I am an incredible moon
orbiting just another planet,
and I am not accepting your disrespect.
I am not accepting your label of less than!
I am breath-taking! Incredible!
I am important.
And I know you have time to accept that.

An Open Letter to Who Will Let Me Survive

Can we talk about how
shooting stars are just painful deaths
broadcasted across a velvet movie screen,
marveled at across the world?
Everyone take notes
of how how self-sacrifice is beautiful,
and the most gorgeous color
is blood spilled for others.
The atmosphere burns them to a crisp
and we worship them to ashes
and then forget their living face.
Because their life only matters because it ended,
and the finale was spectacular.

And I am just a meteor,
and I won’t be a shooting star until I die.
And how does one choose to survive
when everyone keeps waiting
just waiting and waiting
for me to finally die?
Why do I have to make an impossible choice
between living a meaningless, worthless life
and dying a glorious, unforgettable death.
Is that what living is?
Choosing the mundane to continue?
Even when everyone is screaming,
frothing at the mouth,
begging for you to choose shallow martyrdom?

To the Boy I saved, to the One who Didn’t Return the Favor

You told me I had saved your life,
kissing the crown of my head,
massaging my shoulders.
You spun me folktales and epics,
telling me everyone would remember my name.

But no one does remember my name,
do they, old friend?
Because you refused to fight for me,
when your friends in high places
told you to slaughter me.

And powerful faces
outweigh nostalgic folk heroes,
and I bleed out for you one last time,
for your friends, for your dreams
because I had the gall to save you the first time.

To Taurus, With Undying Loathing

I see your face sparkling in the skies,
everyone fawning over you,
acting as if you are something beautiful.
My fist is curled in the grass,
tearing it out in patches around my grave.
How come your face is immortalised?
How come everyone knows your name?
Why isn’t my agony written in the stars?
I see your gleaming horns,
your glistening sneer,
your life-ending hands,
and I am screaming with no sound,
cursing with no words,
demanding to be heard with no lips.
Taurus, why are you something beautiful
when you took everything beautiful from me?
When you shattered my dignity,
left me strewn out like decaying seaweed,
left my arms splayed like a cracked seashell.
And I see your arrogance in the stars.
Every night.
From November to March.
Taunting me like you did that afternoon,
making yourself the hero.
And I am left rotting in the ground,
my ebbing spirit watching you,
cursing you,
hating you,
hating you so much.
But my hate doesn’t matter,
not when you are the stars and I am a ghost,
not when you are something beautiful,
and I am something rotting away.

Two Letters Between Stars
Pollux’s poem was written by @KateHardy. Check out her NaPo thread!!

Sorry, my brother,
but it’s time to say goodbye.
Can’t you move from me?
Leave what is rotten behind,
so you can embrace your life?

Fragments of a Letter
White stardust pinchers,
rusty Herculean blood,
and a splintered shell.