Young Writers Society

you are nothing more than a beautiful smile,
charming and scripted for those
who need to know you can exist with pain
even when it's hard to breathe. each word
you speak travels to them and
they realize they are not in water anymore

revealing your wounds lightens
the burden you otherwise cary on your lips,
letting the corners float towards the sky
like helium balloons;
the strings tied to rocks
you carry in your mouth,
regurgitated but not thrown up
because stones are a mess to clean
and nobody knows you swallowed them

some hear you trip over the pebbles that slip out
from against your cheeks and hold out their hands
requesting, like a (kind) parent to a (hurt) child,
you spit out your defiance into their hand so they
can properly dispose of it some place
where you have to go through them
to retrieve the lead previously in your stomach.
the balloons float away and
you are nothing more than a shell
with no ballast to sink into the water
and no mask to pull yourself up

(they press air into your mouth, filling you
with what you should have ingested in the first place)
— April 1, 2015

you hold on
too tightly for what you should but
your shoulders are about to
pop out of their sockets and
if you don't keep tension from your chest
down to your fingertips you know
there will be too much pain
from a double dislocation
and you will drop into the void with no way
to grab back onto what could save
your skin and bones from a black hole
trying to pull you into its grasp and
you can feel your atoms separating from its pull,
from how your tendons are straining
even in your toes which aren't supporting anything;
you are too high up and you have forgotten what your feet
touching the ground feels like, the ever present wind
a reminder that humans were not meant to fly and
you will pay the ultimate price for your survival,
each slip of your hands from sweaty palms a token
death gambles on a loosely woven cloth, waiting for
damp fibres to pull apart with each drop and each chip
all resting on your head, putting more weight on your shoulders
for the love of god, don't let the bastards be right.
don't let your weaknesses get the best of you.
not now
— April 2, 2015

i forget what love is like, some days,
after too many times alone in my own head
where love is nothing more than an abstract concept,
cobbled together through
books and movies and jealousy, every interaction
they receive a stark reminder
i am alone in my own house no matter
how many people live with me.

stone hearts take on whatever
the world throws at them, fortified through
wind and rain and war, the battle rams unable
to even make a dent in diamond, for you tell yourself
you are a gemstone, perfect and unbreakable, every
ounce precious (while trying to forget the most
beautiful gems in the world are cursed) and
every ounce indestructible, forged with carbon
in the heart of a mother trying to melt
everything it comes into contact with in order
to eventually solidify it into the shape she wants:
a land mass that takes thousands of years
to be inhabitable, sharp stones protruding
through skin that is supposed to be smooth and fertile
but instead is spit out of a furnace with every
imperfection (the heaviest elements,
always) last before a soft dusting of gentleness, ash
hiding glass that could cut you so cleanly
you didn't realize it had split open your skin
until you began to bleed

(i am sorry you have so many scars
from reaching out to me, but you smile and say
every drop of blood helps fertilize the earth and
obsidian shines the brightest in the sun; you have
picked up pieces of me with gloves and armour
and skin, stripping back imperfections while still
acknowledging they are there, a farmer realizing
no field is ever clear without work; sometimes
the richest soil is under sweat and tears.
already, shoots have begun to grow)
— April 3, 2015

i try to forget how much i love you, whole
personas designed around the idea of i am
self sustaining and love is something
nice to have but not necessary
for life to continue, beliefs forged
out of steel, honed against the stones
thrown at me from all sides, turning the words
i had used as shields into two-edged swords, one
end digging into my palm and the other pointed
towards you, even if i am keeping it close to my body
(cutting up my stomach as i try to hide
the blade is even there) because there is never
supposed to be anything wrong, not
to the point i want to sever what ties i'd made
simply because i think you have already
let them go in the name of better people;
my own tongue is a whetstone of
there is nothing i can give besides blood
and scars and pain; any love i receive is because
sometimes i am useful for other things,
words sliding along the space between my
palm and metal, sharpening a knife
i had become numb to
even if i tried to bandage the wounds and hide
because even iron masks rust
when faced with too many tears.

eventually you see the blood pooled between us
pockmarked with stones as i tried to throw them
far away but they ended up in your direction,
and say, show me the knife, i know
it will hurt but you
are hurting more. i do not
want you to.
i love you too much
to see you bleed because of me.
—April 4, 2015

not a good story

i do not want to write poems about her;
the plots end up too close to fairy tales, an
evil step mother and a handsome prince(ss)
to save a girl who didn't know how to
escape from an ivory tower where the windows
were open and there was a ladder outside but
i did not know how to take a step
so i stayed hidden away like
she told me to, because i had no reason
to believe there was even a ladder there, believe
there was something else to live for
outside of pleasing her and being good,
which meant not daring to push my boundaries
because if i did not stay within them
then i would not be able to survive
(or so she told me, and before you say
why did you believe that, let me tell you
repetition is the greatest teacher)

i needed a saviour and people
tell me that is wrong, because girls should
learn you aren't helpless and they
always seem to forget that some girls
never realize it applies to them
or they try and the world is more of the same
so why bother going outside
of what their mother told them.
all they can do is survive and hope
some day their prince(ss) will come
to save them, because
they have tried saving themselves
and nobody has let them

you take me to church and i listen because
that's what you told me to and there are no rebels
in the suburbs (and if there are, i do not
know where to find them), sermons filled
of death you tell me that doesn't need to exist
because the catholics like the cross too much and
their saints are all martyrs; no, you say, that
is not what life is about and i believe you
because i'd rather think that
mother knows best and the world is
a sick place. you take me to church to tell me
how wrong it is that even easter only exists
with death and how it needs to be erased because
easter is about a soul that never died. so long
as you believed that god could do anything
and honestly wanted to return, even we
could come back one day, if only
as ghosts. humans are lost, you say,
and i am their shepherd because you
taught me the right ways but you keep
shaking your head at everything i do, whispering
i did not teach you this way, you
are so much more saintly than this, if only
you loved god enough to let him do everything
through you then you would never
be sick and i try, god you know how much
i tried but you tell me i was made sick
by my father and i need to stop behaving
in the ways of sinners or else i will be trapped
among bones and blood and all the death
you warned me about as a child, a world
where everyone wants to be sick because
then they do not have to face themselves and
i rip my soul apart trying to show you(r god) that
there is nothing else in me except a desire to get better
but it's not enough, you tell me, because if
i truly wanted to it would already be gone, my issues
not big enough to warrant permanence (nothing
is permanent except divinity, you say, and ask why
it is such a holy child with every gift
god can grant so evil, so corrupted that
i cannot escape the prison that has left me
sometimes incapable and emotional
in ways you do not approve of) and there
must be something else, something
i am hiding even though i have told you
everything i can think to say about my virtue.
but you insist there is evil within me while saying
love is the only thing that exists.

(the only part of church i loved was fire
in the form of a tipped over candle; endless light
to smoke out evil and let the structure
burn down to the ground)
—April 5, 2015

you told me i was named after the stars and you
were named after sin, a construct that
placed you in reality and me in death, for the stars
we see here on earth have shorter lifespans
than the light we receive, the night
a time machine into the past when we were born.
stars created us and other names i've held
relate to helping, our navigation run by
their ever present light (that is only a ghost, for
they long burned themselves out to sustain
us), sins of our fathers laid out as
they prayed to a non existent god
somewhere in the sky. if divinity is dead then
the only thing alive is sin, for it is what
we create by living.
—April 6, 2015

a blessing to the ones i love but
am too far away to properly care for;
i hope you find:

i
someone who makes you feel
relaxed even when your awkwardness is out
in the open for them to see every single
fear you hold close to your chest in the name
of trying to appear like them but you trust
them enough to reveal your shaking hands,
silently begging please like me and
their only reaction is don't worry,
you're perfect

ii
a home that is yours and filled with
what you need for life, lights on at two in
the morning because you can and
what is time when friends are over
for conversation, the dinner dishes
on the counter, forgotten in the name
of more important things

iii
a place you feel alive close enough
you can revisit it often, whether it be
the edge of the ocean with waves crashing
against the shore, or your bed with
rumpled sheets and perfume that whispers
you are safe with every breath

iv
an airport close enough to accept
travellers without (too much) trouble
so that one day i may go down
and hug you in person, because
even though we both have other people
to call our own, not one of them
is you
—April 7, 2015

gain is weakness, you tell me, not
in any philosophical sense but
you are the greatest teacher
i have ever encountered. for every step
forward there is a landslide
of quicksand, sticking to every bone and
caking onto my skin, gains
erased temporarily with the price
of progress; you scream at me
demanding to know why i defied you
while crying with relief you are
different, you are something that has
taken a step towards desire and
towards the place everyone says
you need to reach but you are unsure
but you cannot stay where you are, ever,
because brambles are not normal and
you cannot stand being alone (even
though you are not, but everyone
in sight is bleeding to death). you
cannot stand leaving others alone and
the mud is preferable to thorns (eventually
after you have realized blood loss
is worse) that capture your every movement
and freeze you in imperfect
suspended animation, one that
does not leave a meticulously preserved
specimen at the end. The water
around your feet is formaldehyde, every
breath a reminder this is not normal
even though you smell it long after you
have left the marsh.

gain is weakness, you tell me, but
in your next breath, you say,
thank you for being alive
—April 8, 2015

"executive function" sounds like something
on a CEO's job description, the most obviously
stated part, somewhere along interviews of
you will have to make these important
choices and you will be allowed to
make them, because you are an
executive and these are your functions, but
the truth is every job application requires
it in the overt demand for a cover letter
that explains how organized you are
(where you pretend that keeping lists
is a habit you picked up because
of course I like keeping track of
everything i ever do
when the reality is you forget
to wash the dishes
if you don't write it down somewhere)
and wanting to know you will
be able to keep track of ten things
at once, words like people person
and able to multi task thrown around
like buzzwords nobody believes in but
you know they are part of company culture,
they always are and they always stick out
of job postings like knives, waiting for you
to slice yourself open in the name
of being something you are not
in the hopes of surviving for another
however long they can tolerate you,
because you know eventually people
will get tired of you, for these functions
are not inherent in your mind; you must
force them to come to the surface and
you try to stammer apologies when the
mask cracks and every lie you ever told
seeps through, those around you
seeing how there is no soul
within a hollow shell, only the hopes of
savant skills and enough genius
to counteract how
you will never remember a deadline

(but you know even those will not save you,
eventually, your mother says, they tire
of babysitting someone who, like peter pan,
never grew up)
—April 9, 2015

there is no sense that you will be alright
not since injuries became permanent and
bridges burned to an island you didn't know
was a peninsula that is perfect but
so very different from where you ever
thought you would build a home
(if you even remember what that word
means anymore, because your
old one is somewhere in the ashes
underwater), the landscape new and
you know how to navigate but each step
reveals something you did not expect,
poisonous plants so similar
to the ones you had grown used to
are nontoxic, and you stop
to marvel that this wold is not
trying to kill you like everyone said
it would, even though you do not dare
venture off the path because the wolves
howl for your blood and every night
you hear them from across the water
(you pray to god they never learn how to swim)
while hearing another beast somewhere
in your neighbourhood, the memories
of torn flesh and festering infections
still marring your throat. scar tissue
built up over years of harpies
tearing your your trachea prevent you
from screaming in pain (and nobody
is there to listen anyway), only the quiet
whimpers of trouble left of the person
who cried wolf because that's what
she was taught to do when faced with danger
but nobody saw the pointed canines of
the other person's smile. every
snapped branch makes you recoil
deep into the caves you have found
on the shore still overlooking the bay
(but at least they cannot get you there), oil
slicks still alight because you touched
a powder keg and kerosine before running
to a place nobody knows your name
and staying by the shore because you have forgotten
how to introduce yourself.

(the only defence is becoming a wolf but
you know people here will see danger
in your smile)

(they have told you so)
—April 10, 2015

acronymes condense an experience,
two letters enough to represent
washington, the district of columbia,
capital of the united states and nobody
even questions what you are referring to
when part of the alphabet is flipped
as a symbolic gesture of
this is the centre our home
(often called the heart) and every time
i say those two syllables (not even letters
because letters are not tied to a place
on their own) i remember watching you
cross the street and wondering how
in god's name you got so fearless (even
though i know the secret is in those words)
and watching me walk to some place
safer because that is who i am and
while you laugh about how much
of a coward i can be you still looked
back and made sure i was following
somehow, because your philosophy is
another shorthand but this one
everyone seems to forget, a single
word treated as four letters and almost
always followed by "but", the universal
acknowledgement there is something else
left unsaid in a symbol too short to capture
nuance that should not even be there, and
i kept waiting for your lips to press together
in a sound phonetically called a stop (the most
appropriate description for the word), instead
your tongue flowed along liquids and vowels, the
notes always sung so smoothly in hymns that
have forgotten there are other symbols
besides exclusion, stop signs ripped down
in the name of a lion who always protects
the lamb even if that lion knows there is nothing
on this earth stronger than gentleness, a trait we
both share even if sometimes
we forget to apply it to ourselves because the world
is a briar and even the strongest pelt
can be sliced open by thorns.

i only hope i am there (enough) to return
the same love you have shown me
—April 11, 2015

i do not get along like a house on fire, for
fire is the element of destruction. it is what
you reach for when the glass around you
threatens to slice open your skin and the only
thing that saves you is an inferno
to soften glass and make it you can stretch
and hopefully not trap yourself
while you thin walls built around you;
a house on fire is a place of danger
and the antithesis of getting along.

water is an element of friendship its
constant ebb and flow wearing down
what had previously been sharp stones
while the minerals add life to
an otherwise (too) tranquil stream
as it bounces over something
constant while becoming
the ever present itself, each side
taking on something only the other
can give it.

and i would much rather have synthesis
than destruction
—April 12, 2015

we speak of magic and
i laugh because we never used to;
it was a taboo topic, one
never touched upon because
that was for witches and
you always had burned your
self at the stake, toiling under
false accusations when
those in power found the very
fact you existed a threat, how
you demanded an answer to a question
nobody had wanted to acknowledge
even needed to be asked, so instead
of examining themselves they
tried to make you believe in
guilt that was not yours to carry,
but they saddled it with you anyway
crafting a pyre in the form of
the holy spirit burns when
it touches you, do not resist
and do not question, but
eventually you learned that fire
does not have to make you turn to ash,
your body is more than firewood
and anyone who places you
on an altar without your permission
should not be trusted with a knife
(blood is holy they told you,
but they neglect to mention
christ's wounds healed)

you bless the trees that had once
burned with you, digging your toes
into the earth and discovering
death is not sacred unless
rebirth comes after
—April 13, 2015