Young Writers Society

27
On the front porch of the guy you never dated
but who kissed you on your birthday when your
boyfriend lived in Japan, and told his friends he
wished his girlfriend were more like you (you were
drunk then, too, which is still a nice memory even
now) someone gave you a cheap beer that tastes
like the can and it's before the birthday where the
boy will kiss you, or maybe after, but he's got the
ping pong ball in his hand when you tell him
close your eyes
and when he wins it feels like he's grabbed you by
the waist and spun you the way they do in movies
but you haven't moved, you have warm beer in your hand
and you'll still be spinning when you're the one he'll call
back when he goes missing and you wonder if it'll ever stop
spinning if you never really said goodbye.

28
It's cold for the season
today and I did not dress
for the weather.

29
What sweet cosmic irony to put the girls
with a death wish on the porch by the train
tracks; their arms are clean it's pills they popped,
prescribed by doctors and well intentioned mothers
who understand how long the day can be. Cigarette
tips burn red, signal another train of grain cars;
the conductor blows the horn for them, knows
the only way these girls wish to die is with a
pill bottle sweaty in their palms.

If they could die all over again
they would (they say the girls
are more likely to come again),
but it's not as easy as stepping
in front of the train.

30
I don't think
enough
about the bones
beneath my
skin wrapped
in tendons and
ligaments;
they move
so tenderly
yet how little
it asks of me
to think.

Congrats on finishing NaPo!

27 feels so rambling and it's like all the interesting parts of the story are between the lines, when on the face of it it's just someone standing outside with a warm beer. 29 is beautiful and depressing at the same time.

There's a beautiful thread of melancholy, childhood and nature running through a lot of these, and it's lovely. I really like the simplicity of #16 and #22 - they get the point down in so few words - and the imagery in #13 is absolutely wonderful.

I always get lulled into a different place with your poems and the way you describe and pull me in. I've enjoyed this kind of melancholic, nostalgic wander through April with you!

You finished!! I'm so happy about these, and I especially enjoyed all the plant related ones, but I did enjoy each and every one of these!

I love the start of 30. Yep. And 28 is just so... midwest? We've been getting bizarre midwest weather (as dad, who was raised in IL, calls it) and that just nails it.