Young Writers Society

aside tres

you felt it before anything;
cool wind through open window,
smell of rain on wet cement
floating between goosebumps

you can almost hear the swells in the storm
between baseball on the radio
(home, summer, freshcutgrass
and overhot skin turning tanlines red
through sunscreen)
and the cat demanding attentionfoodplaywithme
(tuna breath and wet cat)
but the black sky fades
into the water puddling outside the door
slowly creeping closer

it's late spring and even the bugs are confused
flying into rain to dance back to lamplight
wavering with wet wings
to the siren call of blue light
(imminent death)
that bathes both them and the growing night.

You Came and Gone, but I Would Wait

On that gloomy day,
I sit beside the open door,
on the hard floor, cold brought by cement,
thinking of you, Happiness.

You came when I was small,
when I was playing at the swing
and then at the see-saw
with my friends.
You made me smile and laugh
as if on earth there was no problem for me.

When I was a teenager, you still accompanied me with your light
as brilliant as the sun, and was more mesmerizing than gold was.
I knew what was monkey love: exchanging letters
with him who had the same excitement as I had;
at recess time met in the canteen
with friends, so that no one suspected;
and finally, because couldn’t bear the feeling
that felt like water overflowing the well,
I and him expressed our love
and kept referred each other as ‘love’.

When I was an adult, you were still there
but with a dimmer light and a fading colour
when a monkey love was brought more than it should
to the ocean. He and I were drowning in the sea of lust
And you disappeared, leaving me in darkness
when I felt something move in my belly.
I panicked, because after a while, I knew
I carried a life within me.
He shouted mockery to me
and spat disgust on my face
and left me
when, with a maternal instinct starting to bloom,
I rejected his suggestion for abortion.

Now, when I am waiting for the baby to be born,
I hope everyone around me start behaving like a human
and give a helping hand to me
so that I would not continue to burn in this acid of sin
and could smile, when you appear again.

I am calm.
(voices, running,
can't run, mud
sticking you to the ground
in a slimy embrace
as high-pitched voices
shatter your mind into shards).

I must be calm.
(fragments stabbing your skill
earnings pounding by bombshells
dropping on bullet-stained houses
to the tune of bloody nose
throwing red specks on the earth
and praying for light).

Patience is a virtue.
(no place to run, hide, cover,
trapped in Texas hailstorm
falling through your frayed hat
and into a frazzled soul
cracking in duress and stress).

Now, where am I?
(Where you never
wanted to be,
where tea is served cold
and smells fishy and cars
drill pebbles into your back
and lasso you
into the barrel of a rifle).

What is wrong with me?
(Nothing, if you like
Pollock paintings where
torn skin is the canvas
and the paint drains back
into buckets out of fear
to be replaced by flesh
beaten and withered and broken).

What is wrong with me?
(What is wrong with me?)

earthquake weather #12

it hit just before dawn,
when even mosquitoes were asleep

small orange curls of bloom that hadn’t quite started to open
fall askew on newly created fissures
waterfalling slowly downward

the limb that should have been cut down last season
fell and cracked twenty year old cement
that had been pushed up into separate segments

the dust settled,
framing fresh dirt and ruin

aside tres

you felt it before anything;
cool wind through open window,
smell of rain on wet cement
floating between goosebumps

you can almost hear the swells in the storm
between baseball on the radio
(home, summer, freshcutgrass
and overhot skin turning tanlines red
through sunscreen)
and the cat demanding attentionfoodplaywithme
(tuna breath and wet cat)
but the black sky fades
into the water puddling outside the door
slowly creeping closer

it's late spring and even the bugs are confused
flying into rain to dance back to lamplight
wavering with wet wings
to the siren call of blue light
(imminent death)
that bathes both them and the growing night.