Young Writers Society

It seems like a guilty pleasure
to be excited by potential disaster
but I’d hate to miss the action.

I really love these lines here. I think "potential disaster" is a guilty pleasure of all humans. We crave that chaos.

Poem 11 - 4/9/7

"Home"

I used to know where home was
on top of Spruce Hill
a beacon of memories
familiar cracks intersecting the sidewalk
now with bits of grass showing through

Home was a place for returning
after the world had worn down my edges
and I had begun to forget who I was
I could return and all would be whole again
Home was peace and a respite from all else.

I left a place I once called home
running from the soft clutches of Spruce Hill
The call of home just an echo
that I could fight to ignore, while abandoning
the recurring features that produced me

I used to know what home was
Now I can only sort through
the cracks in memories and the familiar
landscapes of my past and ask
is home something to be reclaimed?

Poem 12 - 4/10/17

"Lullabies of the Moon"

If the moon takes requests,
I would invite a soft lullaby;
the hum and soothe of yesterday
blending through the melodies of tomorrow.

If the moon could sing,
I would ask her to weave the harmony
like my mother and gently stroke
my tangled hair and tell me it’s alright.

If the moon danced while she sung,
I would leap into her arms
to lose yourself in rapid movement
is a kind of worship all its own.

If the moon would only whisper my name,
I would know I am alive
I listen through these half dreams
and long for her to call me home.

I cast my eyes upon the night sky
and stir the stars that fall between
the moon that never listens
but loves me all the same.

Poem 13 - 4/11/17

"Whispers to my Shadow"

I whisper secrets to my shadow
_____and promise not to tell;
cautious goals and cherished treasures
_____stuffed into glass bottles
for the sea to swallow whole,
_____forgotten names carved into dead
trees that have ceased their growth long ago.

I whisper secrets to my shadow
_____and swear I will not tell;
words told in coded-tongues
_____in love letters lost to fire
consumed before they’re ever read,
_____now loose ashes in the wind
to quietly carry a heart’s untold desire.

I pray my shadow keeps in confidence
_____my hushed confessions to her deaf ears.
These verses meant for no one else,
_____not for you and least of all for me.
I tell my shadow to take these tender dreams
_____and hide them far away
because a whisper better left unspoken
_____sometimes does escape.

Made during the poetry jam that @fortis ran earlier today.

Poem 14 - 4/11/17

"Summer Days"

x removed temporarily

Another poem from the jam. Used the prompt: "Everything about him was a lie".

Poem 15 - 4/11/17

I knew he was a liar the day I met him
he was too confident, laughed too loud,
the sort of apple pie and walks on the beach
type of too sweet that I couldn't quite believe.

But I wanted to believe,
and I wished I could just suspend
my suspicion long enough to know if
his eyes were cheating, if his words were slant,
if he meant he loved me when he said he did.

I knew he was a lie before he even said my name
boys like fireworks only cause forest fires
and girls like me can smell the smoke before
the cigarette is lit, before it all goes up in flames.

I wanted to believe that
he was real I suppose; that we could be real.
It wasn't that he was too good, or that I wasn't enough
but somewhere in between those shaded lines,
I saw the shadow behind the sun
and turned the other way.

Poem 16 - 4/12/17

"Snow in Spring"

It’s the oddest thing
to see the world in contrast
when there’s snow in spring

It’s ironic; the first now last
the flowers become frozen
and the future meets past

Mother nature forgets her men
as the peasant becomes king
and the beginning is the end.

I like the way you use the theme "Snow in Spring" as a reversal of everything, especially the 3rd--and last--stanza.

Poem 17 - 4/13/17

"8 Reasons for my Anxiety"

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say;
words are swords and bricks and hot fire.
Proceed cautiously or you might get hurt
or you might say something
that will change everything forever.

I don’t know what they meant;
the words like a noose twist around my neck
they hate me. they don’t care. they meant
to cause me harm. Or maybe I am
always over analyzing, but how can you
over analyze what you cannot comprehend?

I only see seconds that have passed,
and time moving, moving too quickly
moving before I know what I am
looking at. There isn’t a moment
to take a rest, or glance behind me, and I
have the sinking suspicion I’ll never catch up.
If only the past faded as quickly as the present.

I don’t know who I am,
I’m not sure anyone ever does.
But the not-knowing plagues me,
my name is a mantra of question marks
and half thought hesitations and what ifs
and where to starts. There’s nothing to hold
except the questions that keep me up at night.

I will never be good enough, I know
without trying. Because I can see
my hands shaking and my breath quivering
in my chest before I even take the first step
forward. I stay where I know I am still,
so at least they don’t know my inadequacy.

I suspect they do not love me and
they deserve better. I know it isn’t
their fault. A coward is not an easy one
to love. My love is just too quiet, and
my heart too reserved, but I wish for once
I could leap into your arms and let you know.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get better.
I live and try, and love and cry
and scream and relish in the silence.
And sometimes it’s all I can do; to fear
and sometimes I know I’m so much more.

There is more than fear.
And that is not just a fear
but a declaration and a promise to
myself and my anxious thoughts
who do not get the last say.
I am who I am and the world is what it is
and fear is fear is fear and is one aspect
of one enormous whole.

Poem 18 - 4/14/17

"Half Thoughts"

I feel like I’m forever dancing in circles
of half hearted loves and half dreamt dreams
and a life that feels far from finished
and maybe far from started
it’s hard to tell when you’re dizzy.

It’s same old, same old, same
old worries and hopes mixed up
like puzzle pieces that were
never meant to fit together,
a riddle I never wanted to solve.

And I don’t know where the circle ends
or if it does then who I am.

I feel like someone drank the glass
that was supposed to be half full
and now all I’m left with are dirty dishes
with a fear that I was the thief
and wondering if I even regret it.

Poem 19 - 4/15/17

"Flood"
Just before anyone knew
what was to come, the sky
filled gray with a canopy
of water and cried down
upon those below, and we
opened our mouths to drink
the rain and threw aside umbrellas
that had once served as swords
preferring the cool drink
pouring life into the ground
to the blood once spilled
for war or greed or vanity.

Our shoes soaked from
the river forming at our feet
we threw life vests to the weak
and in our generosity of spirit
crafted an ark so we might be saved
and as we floated along
the world turned ocean,
I wondered what it is to swim
or to be a fish or maybe
to drown; as people do.

And as the waves crashed
all around us, brother and
stranger, and mother and
foreigner, I gradually forgot
why we once fought or
why a person might hate.

While the sun set I looked
to the sky to see a dove
flying above, carrying
in its beak a crisp dollar bill.
From behind me, someone
threw a net to capture the bird
and then they were tearing
at her feathers to reach her cargo
and I felt the water coming over
my head even as I found my feet
landing on dry land.

I lurched from the boat
and started running forward
as fast as my legs could carry;
not pausing for the rainbow
or the thunder raging in the sky,
but running from what I feared
in humanity and maybe in myself.

Poem 20 (just 10 more to go to reach 30!! - 4/16/17

"Rebellion"

I was told to be my own
person or advocate or
something equally inspirational
and meaningless
Do you own thing
they said, while sipping starbucks
dripping with conformity.
But I cannot seem to fit
their unique mold.

I'm a fish out of the ocean
lost in a hail-storm
and swimming parallel
to the urging current
straight in the wrong direction

I'm a moon waging battle
against the stars who
boycotted the night
and turned
the lights off long ago.

They can smoke their name
brand cigarettes, wiping ashes
on their logo adorned bags
And I'll be right here
or maybe I'll be over there
living rusted in a gilded age.

Poem 21 - 4/17/17



"Goodbyes"

Like tears under water,
our parting was both
redundant and inevitable;
as shocking as breathing.
And even as I turned away
the words seemed temporal.

We are drawn together
like warmth and sun,
like weeds among grass,
and maybe on good days
I know I could never leave
a love that's supposed to be.

I am the parallel
to your movement
and the echo
of your swift steps.
You are strong
where I am weak
and my own stitches
have sewn you
back together
time and time again.

Today we are no more
and this truth may hold
for days and years and
maybe even lifetimes.
But somewhere within
the locket of eternity
we have been placed
together.

Poem 22 - 4/18/17


"From Where I Do Not Know"

My fears, crawling in the dust
pretend it is okay to lie
and leave without a sound
except a faint and persistent
echo that clouds my mind.

Hateful thoughts from
another time, rise up
and kiss the stars
in one last effort
to destroy what they believe.

And these silent ponderings
favor what they cannot have
what they will never know
because the door was closed
to them long, long ago.

Poem 23 - 4/19/17

" Where North meets South"
I find myself a part
of a directionally challenged generation
using maps as dusty scrap paper,
just a remnant from another time
when adventure followed treasure
and one could avoid hazards
marked out for dragons.

Now iphones serve as compasses
and a means of shallow transportation
while destinations have an eta
and the journey comes with
prescheduled pit-stops.
Our fingers grow clutched
around this foreign object
of bright screen and flashing lights
and never touch an oar or bother
to reach for binoculars.

Our world is the virtual
and our eyes become ill-suited
for the adjustments needed
to gauge the sun’s fall on a
evening horizon or to point towards
the mountains or have a sense of the sea
North hasn’t moved, but we’ve lost it
along with all that’s in between.

Too confident in our technology
we scorn the world which has become
dust and smoke rather than the keeper
of life and death. And here I stand
and holler to the sky asking where am I
and why am I here? I don’t know
if our ancestors had a clue
but the rough marks on faded maps
tell me they probably knew where to look
and I’ve been told that once
they could even read the stars.