Young Writers Society

May - Eighty-seven

May approaches and I still
haven't worked up the courage
to try and talk to you. But
that's okay, because summer
and I will be reunited soon.

Never let us be together,
or we'll want to be forever.

April - Number Eighty-eight

Mother's name. A month that I have
bloomed over the course of. May we
learn how to tie our shoes and ride
our rusted bikes.

Dandelion - Number Eighty-nine

I made a wish with a dandelion
that you would never
speak to me again.

Let's just hope that holds.

Thought it'd be a fun challenge to take a lot of the titles of other NaPos and make it into one big poem! Sorry if I ended up not catching you but I tried to use as many as possible. This is the end of my thread, folks, at least for this year.

Collage - Number Ninety

The entire history of human desire takes 70 minutes to tell.

By the end of the month,
I am left war-torn and lovestruck.
This challenge, a call to arms where I
pull the blankets off my body in a
bedside manner. I'd hate to think
that I'm missing out, yet I'm late
as always, having a reckless history.
these are just merlot footnotes. you

are here, and I am too. Together, we
are in a drought of a spectral canyon,
where our names are projected
into the stars. The constellations
acting as a tarot spread for nonbelievers.
You drive by cemeteries and old trees,
the bleakest of the bleak, yet colored shapes
still move by. A girl swallows a lunar eclipse
with the windows of her mustang--that girl
is you. Always dreaming and eating, yearning

for honeymoon vibes. For blackberries and
fresh honeysuckle. Let us learn how to deal
with the buzzards poking at your eyes. Maybe
the best way to heal is just to walk away
and recover. This is not a poem, these
are the laws of coming and going.
These words are the working titles
and ink stains buried under the
coffee table, only inkstand musings.
All I want to do is see you turn into
a giant woman. All I want to do is

shave a dog and name it Bruce.
Without you, I would be left
with evanescence. Let us fall
into the abyss because I
am not afraid anymore.
I have learned over time that
daylight is for the people that
don't know how to use flashlights
and that you and me and the dark,
we make light. I don't want to disguise
what these words really are, though:
a collage of mismatched contemplations.

Over time I've realized
this is more of a valley walk
than one of a bucolic meadow.

Yes!!! <3 Nikayla I absolutely adore your last poem, what a beautiful tribute to this year of NaPo. I read through it 3 times already and still am amazed that you got so many titles in there in a way that actually makes sense and tells a story.

"I don't want to disguise
what these words really are, though:
a collage of mismatched contemplations.

Over time I've realized
this is more of a valley walk
than one of a bucolic meadow."

Love it!

I, too, am amazed at your tribute poem. And the preceding poems are short and sweet.

I also can't believe you did NaPo three times over. Like I'm fainting just thinking of it.

Nikayla wrote:slumber - Number Twenty-six



there, you stood alone,
brooding in the praire. back
to an old oak tree,
hoary with age. inside, an
owl slumbered, silent.

This sounds a lot like a haiku but without the focus on nature. I mean, we have the moment in time thing going for it, but I don't know what a "praire" is although it might be a prarie? All in all, I love the second second half of it, with whatever "hoary" means, but I'm totally looking them both up to figure this poem out! apparently you mean a birch tree? a grayish white tree from age? I'm not sure about that one. A grayish white tree in the middle of a "praire" which google says is a prarie. Hm. Interesting visual.

Nikayla wrote:May - Eighty-seven

May approaches and I still
haven't worked up the courage
to try and talk to you. But
that's okay, because summer
and I will be reunited soon.

Never let us be together,
or we'll want to be forever.

Mmmmmm this one sounds like a little unrequited love~

Why would they want to be with this speaker forever when they don't even care to think about them as according to being reunited later? I mean, if they only talk during the summer it sounds like someone to drop on their butt and let them swim to shore on their own. Speaker, don't sell yourself short! Relationships work from both sides!

Nikayla wrote:April - Number Eighty-eight

Mother's name. A month that I have
bloomed over the course of. May we
learn how to tie our shoes and ride
our rusted bikes.

oh wow, plural bikes but both of them are rusted? This almost sounds like a recession! I mean usually you buy a bike to teach kids on, and then they graduate to their own bike once they outgrow the training wheels. If it's a pass-me-down bike then it would just be one rusted one. Did they leave these poor things out in the rain?

Nikayla wrote:Dandelion - Number Eighty-nine

I made a wish with a dandelion
that you would never
speak to me again.

Let's just hope that holds.

I want more on this one. Why did they want it to hold? Why did they wish it? Did they do it again and again as the new dandelions grew? What about when they were attached enough that they actually ended up loathing this person?

Gimmie more!

Nikayla wrote:universe - Number Seventy-two

supposedly, the big bang
puked up the universe,
i guess we're similar
in that aspect.

This one seems very melodramatic but also very bland compared to some of the other poetry of yours that I've read. I think it needs to be longer to really get the flavor of the subject. I mean, how is that similar? Was the speaker also puked out? Are you, the writer, saying that birth and puke are similar? It just seems odd.

Nikayla wrote:famine - Number Seventy-three


head throbbing,
i lay on the bathroom
floor, half-dressed. this
is when i am at my rawest.
this is when i am aching.
only time can heal these wounds,
this wretched flu. i can't look
into the light, so i leave them off.
i can't keep down breakfast,
so i don't. i can taste the blood
in the back of my mouth, and i think
that this is how famine tastes.
i've thrown up in the bathroom sink
three times this morning, and it
won't be the last.

This one is really relatable. I know this feeling, this taste.

I mean, the only unfamiliar thing is the sink bit. I usually pick the toilet, bigger opening for chunks, but if you've already got all of that out, I can understand not wanting to pray to the porcelain god if you will.

Nikayla wrote:summer is - Number Seventy-four

summer is freshly cut grass
and the remnants it leaves behind.

summer is frigid popsicles, broken
in two and dripping on the sidewalk.

summer is the two and a half months
i don't have to see your face.

Hah! I love the twist of the last couplet! This really made me laugh out loud and that's difficult to do. Praise Praise

Nikayla wrote:dawn and dusk - Number Seventy-five

there is one thing i want you
to remember when i am gone,
is that dawn will return to dusk
and that dusk will return to dawn.

Okay, this is one of those things that I see people do, but I don't like. I think I've already talked about this before today but it might not have been you. Palindromic logic sound really cool, and the whole circular cyclical motion thing sounds neat, but it doesn't mean much in the long run. You could have simply said "There will be a tomorrow" and meant the same thing. "There will always be another dusk and dawn" and again, same thing. Plus dusk does not return to dawn, it comes from day and turns to night, I mean, you're not at dusk or dawn exclusively, there is a whole cycle of times in that which you've totally glossed over for a neat sounding couplet.

Nikayla wrote:Brevity - Number Seventy-six


Dear Father,

Forgiveness and your name
will never be in the same line,
except maybe this one.

I do not need to justify these words.

For you do not deserve
the flicker of my tongue.
May you live in brevity, and
in my darkest thoughts.

This feels like it should be scathing but there's not enough content here for me to emotionally invest as I am not your father. It's a very individualized poem and I think if you wrote it more long hand about why the speaker needs no justification, and why there will be no forgiveness, even if it was just the visceral emotions, it would be a better poem.