Young Writers Society

lo-li-ta;
love of life
and fire of the loins
of some middled aged man
in southeast America,
more than likely Florida.

it'd be weird to describe this
as the ideal nymphet situation
but the way the body dances through
countless high school aged kids
(dances or homecoming or prom or class),
you'll probably find someone
with an overwhelming infatuation.

you won't sit face-to-face,
reenacting a jehovah witness christmas
by staring at each other's lips
in complete silence.

maybe you guys would kiss,
maybe you guys will run away across the south
and live out cheesy movie ideals.

or maybe you'll be pregnant,
teenaged,
and still holding on.

Minden park is lonely
with all the Christmas decorations
and the blue car parked to the side
of the gazebo.

A (formerly) fat face eats altoids
like it's candy;
toothpaste never tasted better/
my debate partner threatened
to cut me afterwards.

Three hours.
Three hours until i'll be shirtless
or afraid or even dead
in front of a crowd
of antsy high schoolers.

Two months since this started
and I'll never know if it'll last
(most things never last)
but if shaved legs show dedication,
then this will lead to commitment.

One time.
One time I said something wrong.
"things happen for a reason".

If Chinua Achebe was right
and everything falls apart,
my body will reach ground zero
in less than a second,
frozen in time
by the chill off the river stream.

What the hell is a succulent.
What the hell are guitar chords
that can be cut by butcher knives.
What the hell are Christmas themed
pretentious ass texts telling me
I can do something with life.

reassurance is a beautiful word;
i'm unsure if i actually need it.
can i be assertive for once?
can i ask tobin if i can eat all his altoids
till the toothpaste taste destroys
96 percent of my taste pallet?

underneath sophie's floorboard,
i find tapes of this cool math rock band.
their best song shares a title
with one from Skrillex.
it bangs on guitar chords
in an uneven time measure
and it makes music to my ears.

the music of two knights
will play tonight
when i fall asleep,
five minutes after sending
a half-assed text explaining
a french film.

maybe this will be the music i listen to
when christmas comes around.
it won't be elvis costello or an old band reuniting,
it'd be two kids from denton texas
screaming and yelling and screaming and yelling

and i'll be screaming
and yelling
and screaming
and yelling

when i have the opportunity
to talk to them again

I want to go boxing
while holding your hand,
and at this point it may not
seem feasible,
(my weird hand disability
or harboring of fear)
but we can use Christmas wrapping
and duct tape
to knock Santa Claus out.
Happy birthday, Jesus.

Happy birthday.

we're people with bodies,
people with christmas trees,
who stare at broken windows
on streets in midtown.

it's the way the broken glass
perfectly separates our reflection
into eight different parts
which rumbles the
wrestling-ring shaped bolus
that resides in my heart.

this is where fear washed over me
by way of bottled water and a rag.
i know i've always made crude jokes
about a want to be waterboarded,
but guantanamo bay seems absolutely okay
if broken hopes will still portray
some clear image of the future.

Nana,
boo boo,
Christmas poetry
is doo-doo.

"I accept defeat,
I am defeated!"
My Gosh,
what kind of situation
have I created?

The sky is falling
and I even saw God!
My hopeful ignorance
has lead me on!

Forever and ever
comes death death death!
the warmth has become prominent
on my feeble breath.

Full
frontal nudity
is an icky thing.
Feelings are gross.
Aftershave is nasty,
especially the smell of it
at 2:33 in the morning when
I couldn't fall asleep, listened to
Leonard Cohen covers on YouTube
and repeatedly asked myself if the stubble
was too much for my comfort and others.

Yesterday I wrote
a pessimistic poem
that explored tribal
chants and rhyming in
such a way that it made me
chuckle.
I pulled the trigger way too early.
There's blood on the snow, it rusted
rather quickly, but for all I know the
blood could remain for days and days on end.

I don't know anything.

I'm afraid of full frontal nudity,
assertiveness,
and things falling apart.
Things Fall Apart, too.

I don't know how to live,
how to die or how to breathe,
but I know how to sleep
with a blanket and pillow
on the cemetery bench
that overlooks Well Fargo.

The snow could kill me tonight
if I asked it to.
Per usual
I'll wait for it to happen.

Christmas lights wrapped around
the neck of a taxidermy bear;
something I last saw
a year ago around this time.

it feels good to poke the dead bear
with a weak, numb index finger.

Bite me.
Oh, dear lord,
bite me.

I can hear their name muffled through
Christmas carols on Kazakhstan radio.
"are you spineless?"
"are you confused?"
I thought it could die out for at least
one day.

it doesn't make sense.
i don't make sense.
start making sense.
(david byrne whispers into my ear)

start making sense.

Filthy caucasian,
using all whitespace
to write poetry.

trip out in the bathtub
to "atmooooospheric pop" music
and play with christmas lights
wrapped around ankles
poorly.

I could say a cheesy thing;
either pepper jack or gouda.
But sleep sounds good right now.
Along with noise.

My first love died of typhus
four months after they
st-t-tuttered
their first words to me;
"My uncle has diabetes".

With the words of gods and goddesses
tattoed on my stomach,
I guide my fragile bezoar
through razor blade
covered American flags.

"Will this HONKEY TOWN
cease to exist after
NORTH KOREA
blows us all up?"

But-
but-
but-

At the end of the day,
I'll drown in insulin.
I'll see past Friday
with 30/40 vision/
huge ass glasses
and my body will
become a pair of
lungs.
A useful organ
that won't give out

after I run the mile in P.E.
My body will become
a sufficient producer,
as if it wasn't already.

it's a sign of evolution
every time I get a tan;
my skin becomes darker.
I become less of a human
and more of a force.
I am no longer a man.
I believe that's called racism.

The APUSH class is silent.
I could hear an ANZAC
biscuit break in half.
Different opinions, man.
Can't judge someone for
how they think.

Then again, it's common knowledge
that, when you visit SoCal for Xmas,
46% of your human traits disappear.

Dear Lord,
the december sun
is brighter than usual.

Could it be the
ice caps melting
or Seasonal Affective Disorder
going against its
original purpose?

if i shaved,
would i have done differently.
if i didn't have a runny nose,
would i have done differently.

I still enjoy the small moments in time
oddly enough to the point where
my feet become cold.

Actually, my hands,
since I forgot a sweatshirt
on the walk home.

i want to die,
i want to be held in warmth/
i want to be held in the cold,
no feeling in my feet.

now's a weird time,
but sometimes strange is good.
now is something i've
yet to experience in my young life,

but sometimes change is good.