Young Writers Society

Sunbathing in a parking lot

'21—these scattered lines might make a map
'22—somewhere, folded in under the horizon
'23—If spacecrafts meet

Index of poems
1. Tuesday night
2. the second half
3. ECLIPSE
4. Forest escapism
5. meaningless things

I am so happy to see you here.

Also this title has so much awesome wonderful poetry potential. I'm here for it! *subscribes immediately*

Have fun writing, I love the theme you're going with.

Tuesday night

tonight has been a sweaty rehearsal that ran past 10:00 pm,
a dinner of unheated pizza crusts at 11:13 on a Tuesday,
a pair of eyes squinting at a laptop screen—glasses lay unused on the desk,
and a shower postponed to tomorrow morning
in the squeezed time between extracting myself from my sheets
and being seven minutes late to my calculus tutorial—
because tonight is dedicated to sticky feelings:
heat, heavy limbs, oily hair, acne on shoulders,
and fatigue that runs as deep as the heels of my feet

I am not a party-goer—

the conversations always vibrate so loudly that sometimes you can be convinced the windows are about to erupt,
and heat radiates off skin until the air blurs
the same way the air above an asphalt road in the summer does.
there is music playing but it has lost the melody and the lyrics;
it is a mess of hoarse voices, worn-off deodorant, and stomping feet.

but tonight I wait out the first half,
until the playlist is abandoned and the windows are propped open by hazardous stacks of pens and erasers,
and the curtains are gently swaying,
and everyone has thrown themselves onto the chapped leather couches.
by 2 a.m. I am caught up in it all: the way that limbs start to move more loosely,
gazes are held more intensely,
and suddenly you can feel the fibres that tie you to these people.

"eye contact with the sun is a death sentence," the news outlets
cry until they run out of ink. in hidden corners of the campus, event organizers
lurk to hand out free glasses. they say it is so we don't go blind, but
i think it is because they don't want us falling in love. the lenses throw me into
pitch black, with no sense of incline or gravity. i may as well be in outer
space. today the sun lowered her lashes, and through their shade our
eyes finally met.

The mossy branches reach out to touch me.
I extend my hands to them, running by,
fingertips lost in the blur of these trees.

I'll become enmeshed with the greenery;
My breaths blend with the birdsong as I cry.
The mossy branches reach out to touch me

And the pine needles dig into my knees.
I stretch my arms upwards and squint my eyes,
fingertips lost in the blur of these trees.

As the path widens I feel a light breeze
brush my warm cheeks and stir the leaves up high
whose mossy branches reach down to touch me.

My stress settles in the bark at my feet.
I can't resist the urge to sprint, jump, fly,
fingertips lost in the blur of these tree

tops. Wind fills my lungs more than I can breathe,
so I open my mouth and sip the sky.
The mossy branches reach up to touch me,
their fingertips lost in the blur of trees.

I smiled at your text notification today. all you asked was how I was doing, but somehow that made it even sweeter—because you had no pretence for sending that text, apart from wanting to. and I had nothing important to say back, except many unimportant things, which somehow felt gravely significant when said to you. you asked if I got a slushie at circle k, and I said no, I have a sore throat, and you said oh that's probably wise, but when you get sick you make it a challenge to see how much sugar you can consume. then you asked if I watch reality TV and then I asked if you could send me photo updates of your ikea furniture building and then you told me about the séance you went to last month. we talked about meaningless things. I hope you text me again tomorrow.