Young Writers Society

#26

white-flower trees, your clocks are all
wrong.

flowering dogwood, bradford pear, unfurl those
silk-soft petals- like babies' hair- no more, no more-
the sun will not stay, it has cracked to the yolk-
those sunbeams? it's bleeding- the clouds,
the bandages.

prariefire crabapple, black locust tree, curl back
within your bark- like dry-parch lips- for eternity, now-
the sun has broken in two, hanging stiff-still
between two half-globes, earth and sky-
those brilliant night-sets? it's murder- the moon,
a diversion.

bigtooth aspen, chinquapin oak, retreat before
rigor mortis sets in- the glaciers, now puddles, warning,
warming- the sun is not gentle in its death throes-
the quiet-bloom of spring? a cover-up-
the swelter of summer has yet to come, so
save your petals while you can.

#27

he called me his juliet, the boy from
that summer of hot cerulean skies and crisp-cold grass blades,
that summer of slurred speech and sloppy princedom,
kisses on the wrists, that season of laughter, and
the silver of his wheelchair glinting from the sea,
hazel eyes.

he called me his juliet, the boy with
wild coffee hair and pink-skin knees,
that summer when he gave me a rose from
knobbly fingers that curled the wrong way-
that summer of crooked grins and twisted cheekbones,
his spine pressed to my stomach as we swam-
or i did, and he clung to me-
he would glance back with his legs tucked stiff,
arms curled to boney chest,
and smile.

he called me his juliet, the boy from
that summer of racing down hills, and his winning-
wheels are faster than drumming feet and heaving chests-
that summer of ice cream, blue bandanas, "we should go west",
of quoting shakespeare and disney, broken sunglasses,
piano solos, and "you sing nice, do it again."

he called me his juliet, the boy from
those nights of chilled-wind and bonfire messes,
of boney knees and happiness in arizona.

but i think he may have forgotten that
in this day and age,
when romeo passes,
juliet is expected to keep on.

#28

the earth is in labor, and
america is sweating.

maybe this explains the wide-eye girls and
refugees, the dark-boys on stretchers and
movie theater screams,
the bombs, the shudders, the
-silences-
in between.

#29

if you slick your shoulders, your neck, your hips with
coconut-scented soap, maybe you can
get slippery enough to glide along life's surface-
nothing will touch you if your skin's smooth as ice- or if
you lose enough weight, crumple your shoulders to your ears, maybe
you can skate through the crushing calendar jaws and
obligations-of-tomorrow-then-forever, or if you
smile too bright and stand too straight and tear through those
insipid responsibilities that yank out your teeth, maybe
you can skip around the depression that's pressing in.
or, if you slick your skin and hair just so,
you could slide down the shower drain and
drown, instead.

#30

trying too hard and misspoken words are my specialty, but
through black-curl text, lowercase letters, and
line breaks, this month
i cut the ropes that tethered me to
reality, this month i fought to
sink to a sea floor swirling with the
silt and glittering of people-gone-past and
innocence lost- let us dwell-
i walked among the creatures of the night,
i grew fins and gills- shed your oxygen-lungs, girl-
and danced through these
thoughts long submerged, i writhed in them,
swallowed them, spat them out, heaved-
then chortled, snorted, laughed full-belly at the new
empty- a good-empty-
in my heart.

i'm going to fill it with new, that's what i'll do.
this ocean is wide and it has more than
black in it,
i'm going to float and twist and drown a
million times over in those sea-salt waters until i can say
"i've seen it all, and
i loved it."

alright everybody,
once again from the top-
and this time it's for real.

Congrats on making it through NaPo alive!