Young Writers Society

2015~ stumbling on stepping stones

Hopefully this year is less terrible. XD

#1~

"good bye, dear sun," i remark softly

knowing full well how the galaxy works & how we're really the spinning ones, in the end
-my head isn't tied on tight enough-
i bid it farewell, &
one ball of fire in one solar system is devoured by a hungry cityscape of
black ribs jetting into a purple-pink sky, & i
sit back and wonder
when i'll see it again.

"你好，亲爱的太阳," he remarks softly

knowing full well where he sits in this world & how he's the severed link in a sea of connections
- '_____ is indeed an abandoned child' -
he welcomes the sun & its flaws as it rises through the mist,
lodging in a cloud-cluster of smog and broken stars,
it snags in his throat; he coughs, but leaves it where it is.

the two of them -the boy and the orb- have sat in lonely skies for quite some time,
so they may as well be together.

#2

'sometimes i wish i knew what was in that head of yours' you say, but
i know you don't really mean it, because
truly knowing someone means getting involved, and we all know
you've had your share of messes.

there's snow on the spring flowers outside, you're staring out the window at them because
'it's too late for winter, why won't it just leave us alone?'

and i'll stare at them too, but winter means memories,
that's how regrets work
-flinches, old grimaces, that's what they are-
they're raw wounds, 'oh this? i've had it forever'
reopening at the slightest warmth of summer, and the slightest promise of
rest.

'you look troubled today' you say every so often, and i always smile
-dryly-
in reply.

Nightcrawler!

UGHHHHH, these are so gorgeous in the punch-in-a-gut way <3 Number one is something that I want to hang on a picture frame, I really love the formatting and the spaces, the centered characters, the falling and the rising sun. I like the "knowing full well we're really the spinning ones" line as that opener, it's such a perfect observation in how it re-orients you to the subject at hand. I feel it too as an observation of life, as a quiet meditation of loneliness, of the coughing smog imagery and the black ribs line, AHH possibly my favorite part.

#2 is more subtle in its depiction of the narrator's pain, I almost feel like there's a disconnect in communication/worldview in the "I" and the "you", and that made me sad :c That line about the always smiling dryly line kills me!

Thanks so much, @Audy. Hope I can hold on with this. XD I'm going to try to get to yours sometime in the next few days! ^-^

#3

society is a strange one

i.
it's all the rage with girls these days.
honey, didn't you know?
today,
we drench our lips with blood; tomorrow,
powder our skin coats; the rest of the month we
drown ourselves, and
hope that we don't leave ghosts
of what used to be, inside these tight-laced ribs,
feather-clump lashes,
curl-your-toes beneath the weight of
one styrofoam skeleton + everything in between the sky and
these two sloped shoulders, these
ragged nails and ragged breaths.

ii.
it's all the rage with boys these days.
honey, didn't you know?
today,
we throw our shoulders back and grin; tomorrow,
we accept what we hate most; the rest of the month we
drown ourselves, and
hope that we don't leave ghosts
of what used to be, inside these rigid cheekbones and tender-eyes,
and out-loud shouts of
"boys don't cry"

iii.

it's just a fad, honey.
leave the sweet children be.

#4

today was never mine to start with, but i tried to make it so.

the sun never battled for its place in the clouds, and
the night's milky breath still hung in my hair.
i made some rooibos tea and pinched my skin;
sharp-whispered three times into my hands
-puff, raise, goosebumps-

today will be mine i will make it be so

i ran out the front door into fog-choked-air and star-dipped-horizons
only to find that the people there had
empty well-eyes and meaningless smiles,
darkness in their knapsacks and hidden needles in their clothes
and they turned to me and told me,

you should smile more, it suits you better

there was a sort of sleepiness to them; fog hung over cracked half-moon lips
that spread to show teeth sparkling and white and garish...
and i did not like it.

so i returned to my home with my mug still in hand and night-breath still in my hair,
goosebumps on my forearms serving as promises-broken-through;
today was not mine to start with, and i should have known
because although i break teapots and promises, i do not have the lost-dark-eyes and
cracked lips of those people outside,
i do not smile in such a blank way, for no reason at all than for costume,

because that's a whole different kind of broken.

#5

the way you walked, the way your knees bent as you
swept down the halls of our school building, and the way your ankles
snapped a bit at the end of one stride, as if loose, but in a
jaunty way, and how you seemed to walk like you were dancing, or
almost falling, or hardly flying--
i'm not really sure which it was but it was
unique, your identity was there in your gait, i could see it--
and that's what drew me towards you, i think.

the way you talked, the way your right eyebrow dipped ever so slightly when
you were making a point, and the way your
bottom lip was fuller than the top, unbalanced (like your walk), but you
made it ragged from chewing on it in between phrases, and
the way you always seemed to be telling some wondrous story about lions, or
vikings, or dragons, in that slow, hitched voice of yours, when all you were doing was
asking for the time--
that drew me towards you too, i think.

the way you were, the way you existed, the way you would
glide into conversations and back out again, the way your smile was a story in itself,
with your unbalanced lips and chipped front tooth, and a ring on your pinky finger
(your little sister gave it to you, you treasured it), and the way your words
echo and circle and resurface in my mind, to this day,
'you know what? one day i'm going to walk to japan and back,'

and i understand now, why hurricanes are named after
people.

#6

am i the only one who's
sick and tired of all the "they's" "them's", and "us's"?
am i the only one who sees that
my veins are the same as yours, blue and ugly beneath
skin thinner than i care to admit, and that
we all have the same hopes and dreams for happiness, we are
not as different as we want to think--
because often it feels like i am.

am i the only one who's
sick and tired of shifty eyes and purses clutched tight at the sight of
a person's skin color or gender?
or am i the only one who's
disgusted by the statements that "she asked for it" or "they deserved it" and
"he should have known better before..."?
am i the only one who sees that
my shoulders are the same as yours, straining beneath
the weight of expectations in a world far, far gone, collapsing under
hypocritical rules and "if she didn't want it, she should have said so," and
"he was suspicious; though unarmed" ?
because often,
it feels like i am.

i'm sick and tired of that.
i really am.

#8

you wandered into our lives with blue shoes and
empty eyes, and
you sat down as soon as you could because
your lungs and heart are treacherous.

"meet your brother," they told me, and
i looked at you and
you looked at your shoes, your new blue tennis shoes that
you hadn't run in yet because your heart was still wrong and
i didn't know how to feel.

hello, brother.

you were shaking the day we got on the plane because
you didn't know yet that we mean what we say and that we care,
that we had been waiting for you,
only you, for almost a year.

you were scared.

sometimes i wonder how long you were cold,
the day you were found in the hospital pavilion, that
quiet november morning, and i wonder sometimes
if it had snowed.

we'll never know if you had cried yourself blue,
that cold november morning, if your chapped lips had turned
blue as your new shoes the day we met you, if
there was a blanket around your toes as you wiggled in the morning air, if
the police had held you gently when they declared you
abandoned.

hello, brother.

you hate stairs, your cheeks line with a frown when you see them because
they remind you of all that you aren't-
a healthy boy with a healthy heart and chinese parents with enough money to
keep you that way, and

they remind you of how the world didn't care about you on
that cold november morning, and how
your lips had turned blue, blue as your new shoes.

hello brother.

you screamed when we took you to the doctor and
i wonder how many times someone had shattered your trust,
how many times you had woken up alone with
stitches in your chest and the sick realization that
you had never been going to the candy shop after all.

and it's no wonder, really, that you glared at me with tears in your eyes when
i stepped on one of those new blue shoes of yours because
they are yours, and yours only, and
you haven't had much of that.

hello brother.

but these last few weeks, you have been laughing.

the most marvelous sound in the world is when
the scars on your skin are outshone by the stars in your eyes, when
you open your mouth and pure joy spills out,
a joy that i know you've had trouble finding.

and today you let me wrap my arms around you and kiss you through that
wild black hair of yours, and when i withdrew to leave,
you called after me.

"big sister! i love you!"

i stood in the door, one foot inside and one foot out, and
my eyes were damp then because
i know what you've been through and yet
there you were, here you are, laughing, playing,
mending.

here you are, learning to love.

hello, brother.

i'm blessed to have met you, and
i'm blessed to love you back.

#9

i had been spitting blood again.

the pollution had clawed its way down my throat
like a frantic creature trying to
breathe, and so
attacked my own breath instead,
leaving my lips raw and
cheeks flushed.

i had wrapped a mask around my mouth, and
never took it off again.

now it's hard to breathe at all through the
blue fabric but
it's better than the pain that had come with it,
far better than inhaling the
funeral shroud of the city.

the sky is dead, now, but
it had desperately wanted to
bring me down with it.

#10 (very rough and scattered, apologies)

"blue lips and starry skies" i whisper softly, so no one hears
as the drone of education fills my ears
i pick at my skin and murmur faintly
"crimson mountains and twisted trees,
fat robins and shakey knees,
we dance on the branches and shake off the leaves"

these are the images i paste in my mind
to stave off the sadness and keep what is mine
for when eyes fixate and ask of me a future unknown
i need something to hold onto
something of my own.

"are you ready yet? are you ready?"
for the future, no, it makes my heart heavy, no
i am not, for i am still just a child,
give me time give me time give me time, for i'm
still just a child.

i've never quite understood how
in a world of sharp edges and "right here and now"
we are supposed to learn to fly when
we fall from cliffs with our wings still folded.

#11

there's a tree growing in your chest
a thin crimson claw-branch tree, with roots that dig
too deep
too deep for you to look at
too deep for you to pull
they tie you together, they pull you
apart.

there's a tree growing in your chest,
between your ribs, above your sternum,
it's an ugly twisted knot-up tree with edges that are
too sharp
too sharp for you to look at
too sharp for you to touch
they hug your skin, those edges, they
stitch you together.

there's a tree growing in your chest,
a blooming, terrible, blood-bud tree, with petals that unfurl
too often
too often for you to stand
too often for you to stay silent
the aroma of those flowers force tears from your eyes,
for they remind you of when
the tree was planted.

it's an ugly tree with
an ugly past, living in the chest of
a most beautiful person.

#12

the words in my head are sli d i n g a p a r t
the meanings slipping through the letters,
i'm
desperately throwing myself at equations
hoping to snatch one, just one,
they swirl

Keq > 1; favors forward reaction

[H+]= inv. log (-pH)

π= 3.14159265359

6.02214179 × 10 23 moles

i'm
drowning, they are
surging over my cerebrum and under my
eye sockets, through my
shoulder blades and i can't breathe
i cannot
breathe
i--

your dark eyes glide over my
panic
easily, calmly, like silk, like waves, you say to me
"chill."

the world stops and so do i and
i look at you and my--
that is i--
it--

i start again, you are there looking at me,
i focus but not like i should,
i am angry
i am disappointed
i am humiliated.

"chill"
it is my fault i'm drowning
"chill"
it is my fault i can't stop the words from
s l i p p i n g through my fingers, i want them to stop
i do i do i do
"chill"
it is my fault i am here
my fault
my fault
m y f a u l t

when i wake up
you are long gone
and there are tears in my eyes.

i'm
the last one with the test before me and
every equation is gone,
lost to a sea
i created.