Young Writers Society

Tangled Together

soundwaves have cradled me
ever since my crib shattered
and cacophony blew in

they moved in and made my hands a home
after they coaxed out tears and dried them
during the nights I spent clutching an MP3 player
beneath the comforter
hiding sobs.
i welcomed them.

they are the threads of the only tapestry
i’ve ever really been woven into.
their knots are memories of magical nights
spent giving back what i could because together
an orchestra is more than the sum of its parts.

and now we are the bee and flower –
my fingers dance and the sound is a pillar of light,
my gateway to God.

The Hard Way

we biked the trail together
with a phone and the promise to
be home by five.

it could have been fun
but we left too early, took the hill
too fast – steep drop, sharp turn
into a tunnel under the road.

I was flying and the next time I took a breath
I lay winded on the concrete
the bike was two feet away,
wheels spinning, futile
and my gasps echoed under the hill.

I had skinned palms to show for my trouble
a paper cut of a price, but she wasn’t behind me
and I found her on the rocks clutching her knee

the red bubbled on her leg and I fumbled for the phone
and a panicked call later I knew what to do.
it stopped bleeding soon,
but we limped home anyway,
home to cool water and a Band-Aid.

Christmas Lights

magic is real and December always proved that to me
even as the grass bleaches brown
and the trees’ bare arms cut the sky.

the breeze, the flakes, the frost –
something always makes me pause and look up
and smile because something is different.
the 5 p.m. sunset and the slurry of slushy days loom,
and time is the frames of a stop-motion picture – but –
we have remembered our gift boxes and dreams
and our soles are rooted again.

it never mattered to me that Christ wasn’t born on Christmas Day
because the fall into winter needs some tinsel and lights.

International

it’s strange, here.
strange in the way of cool clean water
when i’ve always drunk out of a bottle left in the sun.

it’s not a reality show and
i don’t need to gasp for air
because everybody is too busy splashing
to dunk anyone.

two of them
(you know who they are, they’re always the same and you can always
spot them – glamorous and disdainful, full of
sarcasm lined with steel.)
would be black holes with us as satellites,
but why bother when we could be
finding galaxies?

in Biology half the class lined up
to demonstrate a non-discontinuous trait –
we make an artist’s case of skin tones and it doesn’t matter
that my skin is bleached and my sister is so easy
to find in the crowd (her blond hair is a signal flag
against the brown and black)
it doesn’t matter –
it just means we can sing more songs.

we’re girls, together,
uniformed and proud.

Teacher

we met in the corners
where the lights were dim and quiet and we could trade
stories and crushes and tears

you were my first rainy-day friend when my voice
was cracked and my throat was raw because i thought
crying was for under the covers.
your hugs were a warm shower and you gave them so freely
i learned how to give back and it was as if
i had just turned on a light.

you bottled my tears carefully, and then
you showed me yours
and i saw the mix of smiles and scars and i almost laughed
with the wonder of it because
who knew you were human too?
i bottled them for you
they were a gift; i keep it close now
and always.

you dropped hints, sometimes – insisted
you hadn’t always been a empath but a callus
and the memory still rubbed raw.
i smiled and told you

you’re beautiful, Miri-friend
down to your mitochondria and your neurons
and the way you tilt your head when you smile
what you were is gone – you’ve already pulled me out
of the deep and i know you’ve lifted others.
smile for me?

Fairytale

[REDACTED FOR POSSIBLE PUBLICATION]

Great job! You made it! Woohoo

that ending is beautiful<3 kudos on taking a theme and carrying it through to the end~ that's not easy to do, and especially not during NaPo (which is always a stressful time of year anyway)!

@WritingWolf and @Pompadour - thank you! I'm really glad I made it through, it was definitely a journey.