Young Writers Society

napo prepoem


architecture

it's been two weeks
and it's 2 a.m.
it's so cold
my bones shiver
and your hand isn't here
to still my shuddering heart

it's been two weeks
since you left
without telling me
i called and was
sent to voicemail

you sent me a text
telling me you were busy
and would call
when you had time
it's been two weeks since then

i'm busy too
burning this bridge
that was never strong
enough to support me

the art of letting go

you smiled at me
saying you'd call me
i smiled as my chest
fell with the breath
i let go instead
of trying to hold

thorndeep

femininity is beauty
beauty is soft
baby pink blankets
silky rose petals
rosy cheeks and spring curls
delicate flowers with petals
that swoon at the fingers of the breeze

but the most beautiful part of the rose isn't the petals
it;s the maze of thorns protecting its weakness
for beauty is resilience, how deep the roots run
how thick the thorns are that protect the heart of the bud
beauty doesn't end at the skin, it starts at the thorn

An Open Letter to Anna:

Love is not an open door
It is not something that you
happily stumble upon by chance
It's not oliviously running into your soulmate
It's not him completing you when he puts
the missing glass slipper on your foot
P.S. It was missing before he even entered the picture.

Love is not so lucky or blind
It's lying awake at midnight
staring at a blank phone screen
only to discover no new calls or texts

It's the waning hope
that they'll call you back
even when they promised to

its realizing that later really means never

Love is the keening ofyour soul
as it howls at the moon,
to rattle the stars from the heavens
so you won't feel lonely at night anymore
like the lone wolf
when you realize
you never were a part
of the pack

Love is ripping your
own heart out of
your chest so
the cries of its
beating don't
keep you awake

Love is not an open door
And if it is it,
It's one I'm damn ready to close

on being a liberal studies major


little whispers, big city dreams
young naivety, glimmering hope
aged wisdom, hardened cynicism
as they ask me what I want to do
when I get out of school
as they probe me with their steely stares
and I don't even get the chance
to justify my study

the truth is I'm don't possess a pair
of cartographers tyes that can map out the uneven terrain of my future

(I'm not that girl with starry eyes and a dreamer's heart
I'm wide awake now)

They think I'm disillusioned,
my focus out of orbit,
floating amongst the cosmos,
but when I picked up my pen for the first time
and called myself a writer, I wanted
to be someone

Now they think my dreams
are tragically disproportionate
to my capabilites and my will
They think I want to be something great
when the truth is, I just want to be something
(even if I don't know what it is yet.)

eyes soft with pity,
melting into pools of disappointment,
they deliver a crushing blow to my heart
i failed
miserably like Icarus
falling from grace

for a while I cruised
aloft on my own folly
I weaved a pair of paper-mache wings
that incinerated when I ventured
too close to the sun

we both knew I wasn't ready to fly

I learned flying isn't graceful
lurching is part of the take off
the landing can be painful
sometimes you have to break your wings
so you can sprout new ones
sometimes you have to land
in the pile of our own ashes
before you can rise

flying may be freedom
but falling and then rising is rebirth

a storm distilled in a girl

if you want me
then you better understand
somedays I will be an ice cube
in your hand, melting from your warmth
other days I will be as elusive as a drop of the ocean,
slipping between the crevices of your fingers

if you want me
you better be ready to brave this storm
some days I'll be a raging tsunami
flooding you in a maelstrom of emotions,
a downpouring of force and fury

others days I am the soft azure skies
the smooth surface of a still pond
still on some days i am
the lightening cleaving the cosmos

these still waters run deep and appear calm
but beneath the surface I am always rippling
ready to: erupt, to storm, to flood, to rain,
to thunder

throw stones across my surface, Romeo
tell me I'm the rising sun and outshine the moon
attempt to charm me with your insipid kisses
but your tongue better be sharp enough
to cut threw the wall guarding my heart

I may appear to have a silk skin
a soft downy dandelion heart with a lion's roar
each beat pulsating with strength of thunder
and the force of a hurricane

i am whirlpool cloaked
in a cocoon of soft skies and sunny weather
but don't mistake my softness as fragility
i am a storm distilled in a girl
a woman masquerading as a slip of a girl

close to flying

when others get too close,
I retreat, pull back
d i s s i p a t e
until my particles are hollow enough
to turn me into mist
it's easy to just drift, slipping through people's fingers
because floating is as close as I'll ever come to flying

x

This last one hurts </3 I love alternates on standard things. This one is so relatable and realistic and draws in your reader so much, gosh. The paragraph/prose style is interesting to see and I like the way you wrote this! The thing about the days is ugh, such a sad image, but I like how you connected the two parts together like that.

@killeham Thanks so much for your wonderful feedback and taking the time to read this, especially so quickly. This is my first time really experienting with format and writing a paragraph/prose style. Guess I'm channeling my inner e.e. cummings. BTW I didn't get the chance to tell you, but I've been reading your Napo and enjoying it immensely. I'll drop a comment the first chance I get. Again, thanks for taking the time to read my Napo.

The wandering heart


Every night when I fall asleep
my heart roams the world
embarking on a nightly pilgrimage
in a desperate mixture of wanderlust and yearing

(it's hard to belong somewhere when you don't even know where or to whom you belong to)

i wake up to a cold room with an empty chest
a vacant chamber echoing from its hollowness
my ribs stand sentry, for the misplaced heart

that is always perched in a different location
trilling a song in an ancient language lost
to all who who hear
the only answer it receives is its Echo
a sigh carried on the wind through the trees

(that is the true curse of loneliness: burning with desire to articulate the inscribable language of love)

i've spent years hunting down my heart
but the prey is too preoccupied with a hunt of its own
i may never be far but my heart is a master of escape
always eluding me when I get too close

deep in the heart of the woods, by the bubbling brook
it searches for the one thing against its very nature: a home
a place to anchor its snarling roots, but homes are not for wild things

my heart was born a nomad, belonging to no one
not even its unlucky owner

I fell for you the way Alice fell
down the rabbit hole to Wonderland
only I discovered Wonderland
wasn't very wondrous

it's a masquerade disguising feral as beauty
where white roses are painted
crimson in a bloodbath
and called beautiful

sometimes, love is no different
it is the illusion of growth
distilled into a tiny glittering bottle
begging you to "Drink Me"

the power of small things
lies in the danger of their size
Alice taught me that
love is just a potion,
that shrinks you
down into a size it can handle)