Young Writers Society

Here we go!

April 1:

I wake up every morning
in the same place I fall asleep.
Forget to wear socks in the night
and end up with cold feet
like a fickle groom before the morning.
I’m afraid to walk through the door.

Something about the air gives fronts
short expiration dates.

I am sick of trying to find the precursor
before the fall, the words to describe the fear
underneath my fingernails. It clings to me:
a younger sister wrapped around these legs
so full of doubt. So full of questions.
Forget the majority. Forget the omnipresent “they.”
If I run, will you run with me? for an hour,
for the rest of today? For a moment tomorrow?
If you change your mind, will it change mine?

April 2:

I don't feel like writing emotional poetry
'cause I'm already overflowing
with femininity here
literally
and gosh at times
a woman is such a sweet but achy thing to be.

April 3:

“Blinded by the Micro-aggressions”

I am eight and my grandmother is telling me
it is not okay to be friends with Tyresia.
My mother blames it on her era.

The white son of my mother’s white boyfriend
calls his white mother the n-word. My mother
is appalled at his “audacity.”

A family friend rants to us about the [n-word] neighbors -
the African-Americans that live on his street. My mother says
nothing.

My mother asks what I am reading, I tell her
it is an article about how different multi-racial people
self-identify. She asks if I am interested
in a black boy.

A girl sits at my table in the school cafeteria
and makes “black jokes” while Justice
is still in the lunch line. My friends laugh.
I wonder to myself if I will only be talking to hollow walls
if I speak up.

Justice tells me that a boy in our history class
asked her to roleplay a slave
in his video project about the Black Codes
during the pre-Reconstruction South.

I am angry. This time, I say something.

I do not want to slip on the slide of silence
into this vortex of blind light.

April 4:

Sometimes I wonder if I’m praying
under the influence of a Baal
I am all too familiar with, if the dirt
beneath my spoken motives can be sifted
or if I sit as hardened clay.

April 5:

"Good morning," I said. "Whatcha doin'?"
"Hey baby," He replied. "Just painting
the sky."

April 6: (i'm so behind)

love me like lloyd dobler
i'll bake you nutella cookies
and write you poems

lol so am I indiee!

Am I guilty about only writing 6 poems this month?
Nope, not at all.

No need to feel guilty! I take NaPo on a year by year basis and consider it a success if I wrote as much as I could =) I'm glad you participated!

You have a lovely, simplistic style which carries a lot under the surface. The one for April 4 was definitely my favorite, with April 3 a very close second. The thing I most appreciated about 3, apart from the significance of the topic, is that it is hard to write a story in that way, so simply, so sincerely, in a poetic way. I thought you accomplished that very well with that piece.

Thank you so much, @Adnamarine!! This means a lot and is very encouraging for not only next April but for every day now!