Young Writers Society

14. kites - unfinished

we come to know one
another well enough one another's
smells and sentences
half complete, inconcrete
barely muttered half asleep
wistfully I've kept these kites flying high and alive
times we sort of shrug off,
times we can't help but to mourn,
like there's loss that we feel we cannot forget

We're defined by this;
we clench it in our fists,
they're blades
to fight another dawn.

15. insectoid - unfinished

your fingers make these jerk movements
like spider legs and webs crawling,
and I want to put a stop to it quick as a stomp
because I'm tired and
there's not a mug in here you haven't broken,
there's not a pot in here empty for leaks
just me with these steady hands, chapped and big for my aches
but could you ever hold them again?
the way we once laced and unlaced
fingers the way a butterfly unravels wings.

16. goose country

wild fowls we raised
in this sordid country and this became
how they were named after each of our mothers
with their long skirts and trunk waddle legs strong for rearing.

*

my sisters and I wild in our dreams
chased geese by the shallow ponds,
how we'd hop over their bodies, tumble down
their backs, tinkling tea cups
in our dresses, collecting feathers in our tresses.
by then they've all molted,
and our mothers too, molted.
we saw the shine gone from their eyes.

*

we'd inspire ourselves saying over and over
how geese all mate for life. we assumed these our heroines
who were not made for the glory of swans, but the loud honks
and the plain faced plump of a gaggle, fluffed and poised were their curtsies.
we assumed all girls should curtsy.

*

Except for
by the lavender
of dawn when a goose
rises to unfurl, rises to crane
herself up and up and all the strength
of her brawn, and all the kick of her legs and wild
the flap and circling arch of dust-busting, powerful wings; she flies.

*

and we used to despair and go swallow her feathers,
hoped in our hearts
we'd sprout wings.

17. unfinished

you seem to forget these coloring pages
the ones spread out as wingspans,
and the orange of nightsong and the melons of laughter
—there's still some tree in you left

your bark is thick in the years with combatant lines
suffered through the face,
knotted and gnarled and toughened
—there's still honey up those roots

the leaves may continue falling, and the flowers will wither
but these winter-spring cycles you will see
begins in you and ends in me

18. Continuation of Unfinished, part II

Where I come from citrus is the sweet mélange of songs
our lemons are the pink of a plump babe and a laughter we cry
nectared into pines and apple memories

we remember not in way of drowning, but as refreshments,
rejuvenating and reviving and knowing all sticks breathe out sparks,
my dear, sparks that can burn and ash and destroy away

or kindle the red and the warmth of your face, how it reflects in
and revives up those dead eyes.

19. I must love my mother
but I utter the must with question toned longing
a do-I
don't I
a do bee do bop
two steps forward and two steps into the throng of knowing
mother I don't want to become you
in time I find how heat rises up the rafters, how it suffocates
how it peels away skin and creaks perfectly sturdy floorboards and I know then
mother I don't find I belong here

20. orange :3

21. social butterflies

22 -- 23, Intro to Salad Days

24. scraps for hire

I have a way of writing the same story over again
the way a dog licks a wound
fun is how the day patterns across the page:
today we’re having meatloaf with a side of licorice rum

25. scraps for hire v.2

the punchline: others don't want to listen,

I wear baggy jeans because people don't want to listen

I have to let myself speak in other ways

then one evening in another universe, my kneecaps boiled away in the shower

and I could peel away each wrinkled ridge like the speckled skin of a brown potato

white mass, soft bones

and my pants don't fall down when I sit.

26. Soup's the Thing

mother sculpted a head of lettuce
to resemble her heart,
and served it to us cold.

we ate til our mouths turned blue.

27. scraps for hire v. crap

This guy when he walks
his arms are like swingsets
This guy when he walks
like a dance
like some three step
This guy when he walks
shoelaces fly
untied and they will whip and lash
I just want him to trip
This guy when he walks
always with his back aimed right at me.

28. scraps for hire. v. i dun even

29. fruitspiracy (unfinished)

Everyone knows,
I'm a Pear little girl living
in a fleshy-toned sort of world,
but I've come to expose the secrets I see
of this bureaucracy's age-old
fruitspiracy.


We're all granted for rotten,
inevitably
why do we say, "a bad apple"
when so downtrodden is he?
He's the boon to us all, back from Adam and Eve,
she disobeyed,
bit into him,
and now we're all gonna pay.

our rinds and our stems,
our peels and our pits
we're judged by it all,
our bugs and our bits

To the man who is


they'll carve us up good,
blend us up too,
[scrape us and change up
our whole (natural) livelihoods.]