Young Writers Society

you are a study in
apocalypse. the
road you walk is paved with
every blessed thought
you’ve ever had. (the tar is
cracked and you’ve tripped
more than once. Just keep
that smoothie held up high
and away from your suit and
your sins.) your contradictions
might have been the only
thing to save you.

betrayal is so
much more than
twenty-three missed
phone calls. betrayal is
seventy-two hours spent living
a life you have wanted since you
were twelve years old. out of
everything you
could have done, telling
the truth only ever
crossed your mind at
the finale, when you knew
it was too late. (your holiest
name is ‘the grand gesture’.
ruination is your mouth on his.
but even that won’t heal
the crack that split
your world in two.)

i have run out
of things to say that
don’t taste like
a gunshot in the
back of my throat.

Yo! I love 7 April and 11 April. It makes me want to just keep readin more Sachi.

in a thousand previous
lives you were
a soldier on
the brink of finding
an abyss—the sand
in your boots was always
an illusion (go home—this
was not a place meant for
your hands). in each of
the mirrors you looked in your
reflection was always looking
the other way. hang up your
dog tags. there
is more magic in
the world than you have
learned from a war that
didn’t belong to you and a
father you could never bring
home. (you don’t even know if
he exists anymore—the author
hasn’t gotten that far in
the narrative. but
she knows this; a pack of
cards fits better in
your hand than the
grip of a rifle ever
did.) (out of all
the lives you’ve lived it’s
impossible to tell if this
is the one you’re
meant to exist in or if
we’re both
just getting tired of
the journey.)

(we both
know this is the end
of the page. )

i
have always thought of myself as algebra 1—
full of letters as numbers and where
i am forever trying to find the
answer by the shortest route.
“wrong”, i am told. “it’s never
the answer that matters, it’s
the path you take to get there”,
and somehow i always
manage to take the wrong
exit.
i will cancel you out
in favor of apathy. it will
round my
equations up to something
one of us can pronounce.

(solving
for x, in
the end, doesn’t
mean a thing. every direction looks
like up when the only
place you’ve ever been is
between everyone else’s breaths)
(
.)

your poems make me breathless and i love it, please keep writing <3

history complicates
everything
i want to love.
self care is sitting
in the bath for
eighty minutes
reading about queens
and kings holier
than i will ever be.
(in my right hand; a heart
dripping honey
and in my left: a key turning
darkly. i am a sovereign
ruled.) in my throne
room, i find the
synonym for
sacrosanct—to rule, you
must find the constellation who
loves you most in
the cosmos.
destroy it. war is a
meteor shower set
to reverse and
the only difference
between it
and breathing is
the number of
bodies left on the
cathedral floor.

(history complicates
everything. you cannot
rule if you are
constantly trying
to fill the hole
in your honeysuckle
heart. to rule is to
weep and to weep
is to be human and
you cannot be both
at once.)

i was
in the mood
for this earlier.
everything comes
easier in the middle of
everything else, and
i can compose a
hurricane in the safety
of my own cosmos. ask
me what i am
afraid of: ‘i don’t
know’ is a record
scratching always in
the back of the room
—a favorite
soundtrack no one else
knows the words to.

i was in
the mood for this
earlier—come,
let us reflect upon
ourselves and untangle
the sheets we
twisted into ladders. Ask
me again what fears sing
me to sleep at night, and i
will tell you “i don’t know but
they taste like bodies I have never
seen and places in which I’m
afraid to belong. have i
talked myself
into a need to
conform with
the nonconformists? what am
i afraid of? that i
am a storyteller in more
ways than one and i
hold myself in captive audience.
(this is the truth of it: i do not
know what I am and
labels are best left
for ingredients but there is
something comforting in knowing
the base parts of yourself laced
together to make a whole)

i have not—
I am not—
I was in the mood for this earlier.
(is there a difference between
building yourself
out of parts stolen from
other people and building
yourself from
the ground up?) there is a
line on the ground but
i have been raised
boundary-less and
the world is a checkerboard
where all of the
blocks look
the same.

(my identity is a tithe
paid unto
itself and I am
not allowed to use
the funds.)

(ask me what I am
afraid of. my silence
every time is the perfect
answer.)

(you will love
him with your
monstrous
heart. no one
else has seen the
stars in your
eyes. that
above all makes
him holy. even sacrificed, he
would have bled a
new universe
for you to
call home.)

i will conjure
myself a soundscape love
story where I am both
lover and liar and
the disaster that
is my usurping daydream
will take center
stage at the finale. (i have trained
it like a pet—this is how to
destroy on command: want
it more than everyone
else.)

burn me an encore in
the echo chambers of
my cathedral heart.

Your poems from the 12th and 14th are literally amazing. I love their concepts and their imagery, and I think they're well-executed. Keep it up with the lovely poetry.

conjure my body
into the space you
carved for me. (creation is
simple, but you can’t
do the edges first. everything
that bleeds moves from the
center out.)

i dreamed you into
perpetuity.
you are a study in
in a thousand previous
histories complicated with
a clockwork syllabus unfit
for my hands. i came from
the place you loved a
dozen lifetimes ago (a tourist
guide for heartbreak, where every
small hurt names a street for itself. this
is my home, and i
have lived on this road for
so long i have named all
the sidewalk flowers after
desire.)

i have never
been in a cage that
i did not ultimately
learn how to make
into a home. the only
thing missing is your
smile at the front door.

compare my
body to holy
fire. find me
on the smoking plains
—this is where taurus
was born a star drenched
usurper. tend to me like
a wound (because i, also,
need stitches to hold
myself together.) hallowed
fire is the tamest thing
i am—there is no
synonym for scorching
yourself alive because
this is the only
defibrillator that
works on constellation
creatures. (i can feel them
growing between my
ribs, and they are leeching
me dry in the best
way possible. the best
way to add planets
to your universe is
to inhale stardust in
the middle of the
night, fresh as the hole
in my heart.)

(sometimes it’s impossible to
hemorrhage the universe dry. the
fastest way to the truth is
through its stomach. sharpen
your nails, darling. they’re the
only weapon
you have.)

sweet girl, put
down this name. you have
inscribed yourself into a
space in which you have
never felt like you
could belong (because after
all to be a poet is to know the
truth of yourself and you have
never felt like you could
call yourself this elegant
thing because deep down
in the dirt cellar of your bones
you have never known what it
is that you are or what you have
wanted and you are always scared
someone else will find the
truth out first and they
will not
find it to be of
their liking) (you have
born yourself the page
of cups and you are
allowed to overflow. you
are a cathedral and you
are allowed to pay
tribute to yourself. you are
a cosmic thing and you are
allowed to blaze.)

(put down your
name, sweet girl. usurpers don’t
come in your shade of
grace.)

You came to me
Disguised; a sapling
Bent under
My grief. when your
leaves unfastened to
the sun, everything
i left to nurture
in the dirt
fell out. (i never
meant to build
a garden out of
myself, but strange
love always grows
best in the dark.)