Young Writers Society

I have been in a winter
on the edge of spring --
the kind that burns and smells like water.
I have lost the way to my cheeks by finger,
so how am I to stand in the creek
that you claim is cool
but burns and burns and burns me.
I know you have not been in my winter
but it burns and burns and burns me.

I learnt then to weep
hand to mouth
throat convulsing
as though the sobs
stuck partway down
(chicken soup for nothing)

Here we came together
from so slowly apart
that I forgot about
(I think therefore I am
never imagines the poet)
writing.

Again my breath
like so much fog
congealing on the mirror
and my eye red
streaked.

I think about dying
because I would rather live
in the skin of anyone else
than in my own,
until I realize they are crawling in theirs, too,
and it is just trading
a cage
for a locked room.

This poem I am to write
is filled with









(Fine. I'll stop cheating.)






The OJ sits in a glass
like laundry
hanging on the line
and I stare.

I stare because it reminds me
of the process
and has quite caught me out.

When you're working a 9 til
5:30 your life frays at the edges
and juice gets left
on the side.

I write the same poem
over and over (and over)
in a notebook
so old the lines blur
under the oil of my wrist
as the ink sets in.

While I wait, I keep in mind
all the things I'd rather do;
soft sheets slinking about
my ankles as I read in bed,
mug warming my hand red
as I sip hot chocolate,
running one absent hand
through my mane of hair
like it were a pelt for shaking.

---

While I wait I keep in mind,
that you are here too,
thinking about all the things
you'd also rather do.

♥ For Sabre

Until I realized
I called my kitten my dead cat's name
the first thing in the door
and thought subconsciously
that if we ever visited my childhood home together
I could show her to you - -
until then I thought it would be easy to remember
When someone or something was dead.

1.
Rarely you meet your double in life who has two eyes, a nose, a mouth which talks of artistry and penmanship. But they're bigger than you. They say it's not poetry without the line breaks and you tell them you're breaking but that's not enough. They question are you a line or a circle and you blink and say you thought they were the
same.


2.
My second best notebook
is filled with twofold thoughts of
two old ladies sitting on
a beat up, old two-seater as
it rusts under a two pence sun.


♥ For Gwen

my eyes are beyond the tired
that rubbing helps
(though, to be fair
all that does is obscure sight)
and dreams of dreams
follow softly treading
tiptoe across foreheads
slowly nodding down
to sleep.

A Study in Shades

Collecting raw data;
shells on the beach,
smooth white grains
lying smooshed together
I remember how many times
it took to bring you back
when your lips were blue
and your hands grasped
the air itself.

You are first a summary.
Second, a development.
And third, you leave me with black and blue arms
and a resolution.

With black blood spilled,
With flesh torn.
Every scream pierces me,
Like an array of sharp knives.

I am a killer,
Cold to the bone.
Thirsting on blood,
And human flesh.

I feel regret,
But not like others.
It's subconcious and not relevant,
To my killers instinct.

Some scream,
But others don't,
Just give themselves up,
Like a pig to slaughter.

i want to love a monk
who blows smoke
and crushes cigarettes on the hidden folds
of his yellow robes.

i want to love a girl
and buy her dresses to watch her twirl
and slip her feet into flats
and let her stand on my toes when we dance.

i want to love an asshole
who leaves marks on my wrists
and pushes me down to make me forgive him
so we can ride away fast in the morning
and eat something bad for our bodies
at sunrise.

i want to love an alien
who looks up at the stars and dreams of cowboys
riding comets with spurs to goad them on
and in his earthly incarnation
he writes sprawling scrawl in notebooks;
i'll tell him i will be his penpal,
and i'll leave his letter on my desk for months.

i want to love a man who thinks i am a glass doll
and just once be draped in a dress that cost more
than a year of school
and he will rent me diamonds
and he will wear cologne, and i will never take my makeup off
in front of him.

i want to love a woman who is dying
and who shaves her head
and takes me to exotic places
and slips inside me when she likes
because she cannot wait for others to be gone.

i want to love someone who
has always wanted me to love them
and whose eyes light up when they see me smile.
and who gives me dying things like flowers and fruit.

i want to love a memory
who will teach me i am a masochist
because he will hurt me every day
and never even know
that i am crushing my skull into a wall
over the thought of him
every day.

i want to love a star
and dissolve
when
we
kiss.

spinning spinning spinning spins
'round
'till dizzy is now standing upright
and tipping has fallen
by the wayside
between
having and wanting
breath.

Second Study in Shades

Backing up the process,
watching ants go marching
two by two
slim black ribbon up the trees
and into cool lime leaves.
In my hand is the blanket, warm
yellow checks by the sun.
I have to ask
- Where do we go from here?