Young Writers Society

#13

everything can be a problem in this part of the world
where the word of the day is hypozeuxis
and hot chocolate is too hot
and bras cut into your ribs trying to do their job
where indulgence gives you pain
and you're up too late because tomorrow
is another day of justified self-actualisation

#14

the relationship of mace
and nutmeg is how we should see
people.
mace - the scorching red,
notice me, if you look hard
you'll see the good stuff.
nutmeg - the gem underneath,
inner beauty, all
we remember.
I read somewhere that
where nutmeg deepens,
mace elevates.
those words stayed with me:
does not my face, my appearance,
take you high while the
deeper story is with
the core?
a jar of mixed spice contains
seven grams nutmeg,
four grams mace,
both necessary, not
interchangeable.

#15

the musty, vivid ground
resonates so firmly with
the trees above that
dancing leaves, veined with frivolity,
beckon everything in between
not to pick a side, but
a silent revolution

clouds, buttercups, ladybirds
are all daughters of war
orphaned by time,
adopted by dawn

and dewdrops on morning grass
are not tears of earthy widows,
but jewels from the skies
and gnarly roots,
celebrating birth

#16

it's times like this,
when I'm already far,
that there's glamour and affection
in how my elbows ache carrying milk
up Fulwood Road.
meeting an orange cat
on the way to class,
lemonade at the Fox House
after a day in the peaks,
and how, within two years,
the student bus ticket went
from 60p to £1.

now it should be spring
but it's one degree out
while I'm sure others are
barefoot in Weston Park
or the botanical gardens

I feel like I've run dry
in the poetical sense days ago,
but there is certain melancholy
poetry about Yorkshire,
especially when I'm
not there.

#17

as a clock strikes four past ten,
an ensuing lightning overthrows
everything in its way:
as fast, as ultimately
did I burn,
leaving behind only
parallel tracks of flaming history
and an old piece of tin
that clatters to the ground
like a bully's teeth after a heroic
defense by an underdog

a red guitar shrills
in an empty room full of people
and I'm salvaged -
didn't need
money,
didn't take
fame

#18

this carnival of psyches
is over.
winged apologies
take flight,
then burst:
lacy pardons
twinkle twice,
then die.
the lighthouse is out,
the ships run aground.
Hades is alive
and he laughs,

and he laughs.

#19

footnotes.
subchapters,
contents,
citations of hell.
where maybe is
can potentially be regarded as
and to show is
to attempt to illustrate
and definitely, truly, always
do not exist:
there is only
often, occasionally, some scholars say.
soon,
I will cut off all my hair
and yell out truths
and misspell everyone's names
and never look at parentheses
again.

I caught myself reminiscing the smell of fresh nutmeg. <333

#20

I sang you into oblivion:
your leather-bound sweet talk
was pierced by dissonant chords.

//

pictures painted in words
are worth more than
a thousand words.

#21

well,
I still have my hair
but my body and soul
consist of
budding trees and
adolescent larks that are
finding their voices
after winter

where the sun doesn't set
until nine in the evening
and it actually doesn't,
it's not just
in my head anymore

all the books,
cakes,
brooks,
fates -
I'm ready for you.

#22

västäräkki, paluumuuttaja
ei kerro mistä tullut on:
rakkaitansa hullut on
tulleet noutamaan,
soutamalla halki maan
kalpeat on kevään sävelet
kun luotain leuka eellä
varhain kävelet

#23

dash, gentle
do not scare your
newly acquired offspring;
their eyes, ice blue,
asking you to play
their feet are going fast, fast
even though they don't know
that they were meant
to pull sledges
in arctic circumstances:
named by the aurora borealis,
raised by sparkling snow
so cold that you don't sink in it,
you just glide

#24

you are going to hate yourself
knowing it all ended in
chocolate raisins:
the only non-vegan booby trap
in a huge pool of socially acceptedness
and with last night's mascara
smudged under your swollen waterlines,
a bouquet of lilies
or breakfast in bed
isn't going to fix it

#25

slick leather,
stiff with newness
pierced in delicate patterns:
humming with suspense
about where I'll take you,
what story will be etched
in your handles and soles,
which gravel will grind out
the number at the bottom,
and which beach will donate
its sand into the folds

tomorrow it begins,
unless there is rain

#26

sprinkles of edamame
do not earn you affection
or even respect:
least of all when you've spent three quarters
of an hour to arrange your hair
to look like it was styled by sleep.
so please stop carrying your dignity
and your little faintly lined notepad
that you've loved into poetic dog ears
in a case for an obscure instrument:
even an attaché would be less painful
(yes, even with the accent)