Young Writers Society

Poems to go here.

(18+)

I.

When she takes you home
and her father stares like you're fresh off the boat,
shake his hand like you're stronger than him.
He knows you aren't.

When her hand finds your thigh at dinner
and her mother asks how you met,
forget that she talks like a scientist
and fucks like a waitress.
You're with family now.

Three months of reps and sweat on the mats
and maybe when she insists on fixing the garbage disposal,
you'll shrug at her brother
and he'll believe you.

She always wakes up first and lets you drive to your parents.
When she shakes your father's hand
her fingers curve delicately
like a ring is being placed on them,
and her palms smell like lotion.

^ Love that so much. I already have a sense of the interactions and dynamics within this couple and their family and the conflict makes it rich and fun :3 And the lines like "forget that she talks like a scientist and fucks like a waitress" BOLD! I also love the contrast between the "she" shaking hands the narrator's own handshake. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh <3

II.

10 miles out, the city started again,
the road curving through suburban swirls of swimming pools
and alternating lily and cream siding.

We pushed deeper until night came
and the wet heat pooled in our lungs.
At the corner of Church and Union we checked the map
and saw where we should be
and where we were.

"10 miles and we're out of here", he'd said that morning,
pointing to the straight line of I-95 slicing the city in half.
But the odometer read 40 when we pulled back into the driveway,
and that night we dreamt of drowning,
unsure whether the water in our chests was from the Schuylkill
or the Atlantic.

III.

two dying boys escaped their families
drove west so they could live unloved
two girls in columbus did all the right things
tucked their hair behind their ears
asked where the boys were going
didn't ask where they came from

girls asleep the boys smoked
"feels good to be alone"
entire galaxies sitting between them
"yeah"
they were past cleveland by sunrise

sometimes when one boy talked his face would change
and the other boy would cry in fear
at being in a car with his 4th grade math teacher
with richard nixon
with hades
with his father
then they'd switch who got to change and who got to cry

two days on the lake michigan beach
planes flying over and east, american airlines chicago to philly
"my uncle always called these the flyover states"
the rocks they threw at the planes arced down into the tiny ocean

two hours past chicago the sickness hit
hands white on the steering wheel
"i need to go back home"
o'hare was a city of its own
stuck in the middle, two dying boys
one shivering one sighing

the goodbye was quick on the outside
a years-long eulogy on the inside
"hope you feel better"
"thanks you too"
the remaining boy didn't stay to watch the plane take off

a week drinking outside bozeman
the stars a mist overhead
so many he couldn't feel the boy on the other side
"feels good to be alone"
he threw rocks in the dirt
wrote himself a eulogy in his head

IV.

fires howling in the east
grow, scream, strip belief
from the elders, grown and young
viewers of greased clocks
ticking time bombs in a forehead's crease.
a brief relief in summer storms
grown on lakes poured on homes,
opened carcass bones
children squeal on vertebral slides
drum on still chambers of the heart.
inferno on tv sings melody, newscasters harmony
we pray for flame

So, I. was like delicious and then III. was like a delicious JOURNEY, and I want more confectioneries from you this month! <3

III is some kind of magic I swear. Ugh, my heart. Partly because I'm from Ohio and live in Chicago, but also because the emotion I'd so strong. I love the sense of story arc it has.

V.

he is still
an irradiated city in his heart
his story written in the dust under our feet.

an empty city begs to be photographed
but he just wants water on his tongue
and no pictures, please
his is a safe place.
we respect his rules.

his apartment has no glass left
nor does the school or the hospital
wind moves everywhere unhindered.
on the balcony we drink
every bone out of place.

VI.

old friends
break open like ripe fruit pulp and juice
between the lips of two boys in the orchard
reaching fingertips pulling leaves aside
but they finally uproot and try to walk home
cradling their loot in aging joints and
weakening grips that fall as each
finger slips into tomorrow and soon
it's a game of chutes and ladders

one holds the bottom while the other climbs
to the top and by the time
he returns to the base it's
already autumn and these old friends
they've lost the crop but can still
remember the taste

Your third, fifth, and sixth poems are lovely and I want to eat them all up. Especially the third one, but they're all strong pieces. I like how there's an element of a narrative to all of them and your delivery/emotional weight behind your lines is spot on. <3