Young Writers Society

xxix.

you drew a map on a sticky note
and left it on my pillow.
it said ‘this is the way to where we were,
since you can’t remember how to get back.’
as lies go
it was a small one,
told to keep me from getting in too deep
because of the two of us, you ignored warning signs
and thought silence was an invitation
set to the beat of mistakes we'll never make.

xxx.

My ribs are a stronghold, and there lives everything
I will never be able to say. I am a creature made of stone
and vine and all of the small hurts that have
scabbed over into armor. Everything I have to say that starts with
Why? How? Or Please—
Has been ground into dust and spun into roses for my hair
because it has looked less like silk and more like a silver
streaked universe in which I have no place.

I cannot make my heart make sense. In it are
boxes best left closed
because once upon a time I lured demons inside
and there were no air holes for life. I thought they
would die and I could rescue their corpses and
give them burials on sea because all I ever wanted
was to feel salt breezes in the places I didn’t think
were allowed to exist, things I weren’t allowed to have, something
meant only for people who weren’t me.

I have learned to be invisible. I have learned
to bite back the words I was there too because
it is easier than explaining where there is.
It is a place you cannot see.
It is a place I cannot leave.

I have learned to define want and need
as quantifiable things that I am.
I want to be wanted.
I need not to be needed. please do not need me
please only want me I
want to know what it is like to feel the
power of denying
the way I have been denied.

I have strangled my demons but
they only rose from the dead with more
questions on their dirt stained lips than I have
words with which to answer. They will not
be ignored but I have performed greater feats
than they expect and soon the grave will call them back
because it’s the only place for people
like them which is not to say that I
shouldn’t be there as well—but I am
a master of disguise and I
will keep on running.