Young Writers Society

*I guess I'll put a little warning in front of this one -- I'm playing with the idea of a paper cut and I think it's a bit of a disturbing image.


ix.

sometimes i look at a paper
and so vividly imagine a paper cut
that it hurts,
that i’m surprised my finger isn’t
slit like the sliver of the
sun, shining out,
then, shut.
the finger is whole,
my nerves in tatters.
thread the needle to
stitch my stars back together but
i don’t trust you not to
stick my skin instead
i don’t trust you -
not to sew me and not to
stop.
the needle’s blunt end
looks just like the sharp, shaking
because i can’t see straight
through the slivers of my
eyelids, shut to a slit;
but what if
what if
what if
my finger was sliced
all along?

x.

It's a certain kind of happy to be home,
your shoulders’ release when you set your bags down.
It becomes the place you long for while you roam,
your heart’s refuge when your plane leaves the ground.

Sometimes your bed is better than the best-laid plans;
the sense of soul imbued in what once was bare
a peace that you’ve made with your own two hands;
you’re always more yourself while you’re there.

This home is not forever, but there’s always the now
of working driving cooking showering each day,
waking up in quiet, sunlit mornings, wondering how
for once in your life you found you can stay.

In a year you’ll find yourself taping a box
but for the moment, you just pray for the rest
of your key in the door and sweet afternoon walks,
grateful for how you’ve been blessed.

xi.

let me out of my own skin
i don’t recognize this life anymore;
it was a different me who loved you,
your hugs don’t feel the way they used to
and i don’t think i want to feel
your kiss on my cheek;
it won’t be what i hoped for.
that feeling when
you’re okay with your toenails, your hair
until you cut them off
then they generate disgust;
bits of skin, hair in your food;
that’s how my body starts to feel to me,
i don’t recognize my own actions
only my thoughts are most me
only my hands when i’m alone
act in a way that i don’t overanalyze,
typing or washing dishes,
normal things. normal me.
but with you,
it never stops.
the words pour from my mouth
like bees from a hive,
like i’ve forgotten how to be kind,
like my love language is spite.
it’s not who i am, who i’m meant to be,
how i act around anyone else.
how do i fix it?
how do i leave my own body?
or should i instead be asking,
how do i leave you?

xii.

I used to love coming to your house
on summer break, fall break
it was like an enchanted place
away from campus
where we could cook and laugh
and have space to ourselves,
a place you’d helped renovate
by hand.
There was a certain smell,
like pelmeni and fresh laundry,
fresh air, and we would
walk to the lake every day
and I never needed to take photos
because it felt like
home.

Now that I live on my own,
cooking is a necessity, not a hobby
and laundry smell costs $2 a load;
I work at my job instead of
on my own living space
and I’ve come to realize that we were just
playing house
and now it tires me out,
the way the enchantment has
dimmed to bare needs.
The lake is still beautiful, but
I have no space left for beauty.

xiii.
sleepy haikus for the emotionally exhausted


the ghosts of the past
return to haunt the present
and they want to talk.

-

hearts aren’t big enough
to hold all that was or is,
only future tense.

-

old faces, old wounds;
they, not time, have the power
to mend my spirit.

-

i always leave, am
continually breaking,
there is no return.

xiv.


I let my engine run this weekend;

I hit the road with
sun in my hair and
wind in my teeth,
a calming presence
in the passenger seat. 

I like choosing when to turn the ignition,
when I want to watch
the gradual change of desert hills
to cliffs of trees.

I like steering my own path,
the control,
grinning grille surging forward.
My imagination sparks,
my mind's motor runs
along the roadside with me,
72 miles per hour.

I like the feel of the car,
the vibrations through my hands
until it gets too much
and I turn numb,
highway blind
and gas tank empty.

I never want to stop
until it becomes a need,
and then I don't remember how.

xv.

A year of dust and this grassy haven still feels like home
though I’m unrecognizable, a stranger at night who steals home

My feet know the roads, my face knows the rain, my eyes know the sky;
my heart remembers the pain of this grey and teal home

There is no “return” to the house; my soul lives there still,
lingering by your old door, recalling the kiss that once sealed this home

But now others walk these crooked stairs, sleep in these rooms
and God keeps telling me that anywhere I kneel is home

So let me kneel here, at the foot of my mountain, and pray,
that one day I can come back to live in my real home.

xvi.

Some days, I just want to be old
in that beautiful, weathered way
or not, I just don’t want to care.
I want you to see a smile, not the teeth;
I want to have a lovely soul
and someone to just hold hands with
as we walk across the parking lot,
a shoulder to rest my head on
instead of a walking moral conflict
I sometimes like to tag along with
for the thrill; I want stability now,
and peace, and long-term things
like abiding love that doesn’t ask for
anything, and I don’t want to ask for
anything, either, just to be myself
my personality fixed in stone, so I can
spend my time laughing instead of
gnawing on the flaws I’ve always had
and always will. I don’t know why I think
that grey hair will take away my reproach,
but there’s something about it.
I want to be here and know
I’m too tired to try anywhere new,
and I want to be content with that.
Some days, I just want to be old.

xvii.

Night walker and sleep talker,
that was us.

When I’d come in from my wanderings,
the streetlight shone through the
slits in the blinds, onto your bed
where you smiled in your sleep.
You always did seem so happy.

Your midnight mumblings about
fishing, and what a beautiful day—
you gave me bits of what you
could, and what you didn’t even know
you gave.

Night worrier and day warrior;
I lived for your sunshine and
trips in your yellow truck,
maybe going out dancing but probably
just dropping me off at Target.

You only visited
the room that belonged to us;
I would find out later, sometimes
days after, when I saw you next, about
the late night biology studies,
or more likely sliding in the rain,
playing “sting pong” or chair
racing down the halls.

I was just your backup roommate,
and you were my backup best friend.
Maybe that’s why, even though we both had
so much love,
you gave to the world and
I had only you.

xviii.

I’ve never felt particularly compelled
to write a chicken poem before
(though I’ve tried to make it
somehow a metaphor
for something I felt
more strongly)

As a signifier, it didn’t give me much,
not like ravens or great horned owls
hooting in the night, flying great distances,
embodying creativity;
chickens are a homier sort
and only bring to mind
my aunt in Florida,
collecting eggs in the morning and
riding horses in the afternoon.

A lovely thing to remember,
really, but not much emotionally
charged.

But I was thinking,
there’s that scripture, right?
About how God is like a hen
gathering her chicks.
And if God or a prophet or Christ
or whoever
could be inspired by a chicken,
could put a chicken into
scripture, then

I don’t think there’s a logical suit to that statement,
but it’s okay. I just mean to say that sometimes
writing about trying to write about chickens is
alright. And even flighty birds can still rest
their wings for the night, or a year in the life.
And maybe there was a metaphor in there,
after all.

xix.
neighbors


i.
10 minutes to 12
I see you start funneling in
matching baseball caps through the windows;
then, all of your loudness, your rowd-ness,
the slap of a ping-pong ball against
the other side of our wall.
I almost have to admire
the sheer audacity it takes
to park your truck on the sidewalk
outside of our office
with 8 open parking spots nearby.
In an hour, you’ll all funnel back out,
selling things, all day long.
In a year, you’ll be out of things to
sell.

ii.
Track-suit man, gamer man,
chain-smoker sunglasses man,
we don’t know what you do.
We researched the banner
hung large on your wall:
it’s for snowboarding,
something you never seem to do.
What you do:
sit at your computer and
emerge on your balcony to smoke
every hour.
Maybe you make YouTube videos,
you’re a streamer, you’re secretly
famous.
I apologize for that time
I tried to take a photo of the sunset sky
and it probably looked like I was
stalking you.

iii.
In my head, your name is
Thrasher Car,
even though I know you’re
Charley with a y because of that time
my plumbing broke your plumbing
and you came over to my place a mess
and asked me not to use my bathroom sink,
and I was a mess and said ok,
then left my phone number on your door
the next day.
You seem like you could be my age.
Sometimes we leave around the same time for work—
you in your Thrasher-bumper-sticker-car—
and that’s when I know I’m running late.
You listen to music sometimes,
and I want to ask you what.
We shower at the same time,
sometimes.

iv.
You smoke on the
stairs, not the balcony;
sometimes you startle me
when I open the front door.
I think I startle you,
too.
I see your door closing
when I walk up the stairs,
when I only meant
to say hello.
Motorcycle man,
I imagine you
a gentleman.
You keep to yourself,
but once,
we said,
“It’s a nice evening.”
“Yes, it is.”