Young Writers Society

Sorry, Sorry, Sorry

Chaos erupted in my brain, sending nerves
in scramble, forcing the wall safeguarding my sanity
to fall.

Memories flood in colours
of black, brown and red, non-stop,
as if the storage of seconds and hours
were limitless. They rushed in with the whisper,

Sorry, sorry, sorry

for lashing out to Father when his words
squeezed me until the only thing
I could breathe in and out
were his mockery and my anger.

He sprayed me with the hose he used
to wash the car. My frustration manifested
in the form of a wounded beast growling
after being free from his cage.
I punched Father’s head until it bruised.

Sorry, sorry, sorry

for not being the son Mother wanted
who could zip and unzip his mouth only
when needed, who understood talking back
only caused the fire to spread. I wished
my body was made from plastic and metal
and the switch to shut it down was at my fingertips.

I saw and heard her crying, sacrificing herself
in the middle of Father and me, pleading me to stop
spouting toxic whenever he cursed at me
as if I was a fly ruining his food.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

The whisper persisted in my mind.
I couldn’t bear it, so I went to Mother’s room
to say, ‘Sorry, Mother, for everything
I have done. Forgive me, Mother, for the sins
I have made.’

It didn’t leave me. The memories kept
filling my mind until my eyes were close
under the moon, hand clutching my head.
I could not end them; I could only escape.

a short blossoming

It seems only yesterday
that my favorite pink flowers
were bobbing on the bush—

(remember the way we used
to toss the pillows back and forth lightly
as wind-tossed dandelion seeds, dear friend?)

—but this dew-sprinkled morning
when I visited my flower patch,
all had wilted and closed its eyes to me.

Its beauty lasts as long as
the wonderful, lingering dampness of rain
that ascends to the heavens
soon after a rainbow thrusts itself in the sky.

(Tell me, friend,
what is it like up there?)

X. the issue of blood

when you're born into home-brewed pride (or cut
your teeth on cans of cheerwine and budweiser)
there is a slice on your gums
___________________that never quite
______________ceases to bleed.

flesh and bone grow back, and doctors
__________are wonderful people
______________with their bleached smiles, with their
_____opinions on how to save everyone
until they don't.
_______________________[truth is, some people
___________________________are just beyond saving.]

my father always brushed off fear
____________because he felt it each day.
_____and so he learned to crush dangerous emotions
___________with a sledgehammer, as his father taught him.
____________________[and this is the sin of the father,
_______________________as i took all the shards into my mouth;
___________________here is the blood for infidelity,
_______________________here is the blood for neglect.]

as the doctors used to say:
the best way to rid a disease
is to bleed it out, to lose every ounce of yourself
to fell the plague.
_______________________[so i'm waiting for a smile
__________________________to tell me when i may stop.]

feelings for my father

*poem deleted for submission to lit magazine, wish me luck*
- March, 2020

Where once the night was dark and dreary, I
breathed in the painted dawn of the new morn’,
and tasted the sweet kiss of pastel skies,
though my heart had hung heavy and forlorn.
And while my hair tangled with dust and sand,
I dreamed of angels flying down upon,
this futile orchard, this deserted land,
eyes on the halos the spectre’s had donned.
And though my body was stripped and dry,
the desert a suiting grave for my sin,
a smooth hand reached down from the light-filled sky;
I watched the holy sight and cried within.
And as the sun crested the rolling hills,
I moved on towards where the sun-light spills.

i.
i used to think god lived
in the menorah, candlelight
it’s own sacrament
dripping tradition

ii.
there’s books hidden behind glass walls
that whisper of tradition that has slipped
through fingertips and we’re left with impressions
tinged by nostalgia and musk
and pages that never open.

iii.
my mother has a mezuzah
that lives in a jewelry-box drawer
because it never quite made it
to a door.

iv.
in college i learned a meaning of shabbos
and group dinners friday nights
where fighting over challah and hummus
and learning camp versions of prayers on the fly
meant induction into part of something
i never quite knew if i'd found or lost

I can't decide if I like these together or separate like I originally wrote them... ugh.

You hold me at gunpoint
a diaper-clad carrier with a rubber ducky side-kick,
and complain that I am too childish.

That I don't care enough about you
to do the grown up thing.

That I have no dicipline
despite the swarms of you
who I have thrown in jail
killed in the streets
cuffed and arrested
and ignored.

I spit out hurtful words in retort
it's your fault. I am not at fault.
You're the one who pushed it.
You're the one holding the gun.

You're the one who is crying
out for attention and seeking
discipline and control through
these negative means rather
than accepting that I'm giving
you complete power, freedom
to make your own choices and
you chose to befriend the rubber
duckies in the first place. You
are at fault. Not me. You should -

You should -

But inside, my stomach knots
as I realize you're still sucking
on a pacifier, can't contain your
mouth to your face for all
it's yawning, wanting nap time
and your brain is still growing
learning to make choices, discovering
what danger really means.

You're still immortal in your world
despite our warnings, you're still
imagining that heaven is real
and maybe sending some people
would be a good way to get in.

They could prop the door for you
so you could join the bouncy house
in the sky rather than living in this
hellish world where adults pass you up,
ignore you.

I'm sorry, for all the stupid people
for the way we've had to set a time bomb
in our electoral system, and we're waiting
for it to explode just as you join our ranks
just as you sign up for the duty to our adulthood.

It's not fair that we made these choices
and you have to die the consequences.
It's not fair that I was told "Life's Not Fair"
as a motto for why my paper wasn't accepted late
and you're learning "Life's Not Fair"
because of Mr. Rubber Ducky.

Blood splatters Nap Time.
Sleep in the corner, learn to dogpile

Quiet time means the thunder might
be closer to earth than we hope
it might echo in our walls rather than outside.

I'm sorry life's not fair, that we've already
set our shock paddles to full and rubbed them
as ferociously as we could together
ready to press them on the chest of our nation

Revive the Revolt. Revive the Revolution
Revive the Reason we're Really against Reds.
We the people all agree that what we see
is not what was meant to be, so we are taking
our rights, our forefathers rights, and tearing
everything to shreds. Start again.

My generation knows how to fix a broken thing
Kick it, try a hammer, maybe pry at it
with a screwdriver in any crevice you can reach
and when you call IT, say you tried restarting it
but finally do it again when they catch you in the lie.

Click and hold the power button 15 seconds.
17 lives. 10 lives. 28 lives. 33 lives.
and all those single digits in between
Click the power button on again.

See if the magic of a lack of power for 36 lives in 2018 so far
will remind us that "our children are our future" is more
than just a political slogan to get people elected.
It's a promise to be there
when circle time is stained red
and rip away those toys
revoke our rights to rubber ducky
because clearly, we're not adult enough
to be responsible.

This is why we can't have nice things.
I need an adult.

viii. born 'n razed

he always takes the first swing;
his grin is full of broken teeth,
sharp and dangerous, and
each punch crashes towards
newcomers calling his bluff

he's carved from the asphalt
striped black/white/yellow and
faded by the baking city sun into
a shadow of who he was born to be

he walks on weak ankles and
shattered legs with his fists up
in case someone thinks he'll be
an easy target

and swings—
fast and hard—
at anyone who gets too close

childish times

“take care,” comes the whisper from
my phone, final words in a conversation
i hated. it couldn’t be over, no, no,

it feels like we’re still catching sunshine
on our palms, the taste of light and
cheerfulness gracing our tongues.

sweet like the honey dripping from
a golden bottle, that child-like wonder
of a world that hadn’t buried dreams

i find them now, squinting at the broken,
discolored shattered pieces hidden
by years of disuse, sunk into the sand.

i piece together those cherished remains,
happiness rising to fight against the
developing despair as “goodbye” arrives.

Poem 11

April 9th, 2018

rattling

Pause when the green skies start to break,
sparking from cloud to cloud like the messages
you frantically send to a friend as you cower
between the seat and the steering wheel
of your pickup truck, and you'll find,
just before the rain breaks the air and splatters the ground,
here the shadows of the dead linger.

Peek out of your window to see the bodies
crawling up the lightning rods, shirts charred,
sunglasses broken, bony jaws exposed.
And if they look back (it's hard to tell,
but you can usually see a gleam
from behind their eye sockets), they're judging.
Are you worth joining their ranks,
they fortunate enough to climb up
to the world of the living
and wait to come alive in the split second
they reenact their violent deaths?

But they're fickle, because they were the daredevils,
and they can tell when you'd rather stay in your coffin
when the sky starts to boil again; all you need to do
is crouch beneath the steering wheel, count to ten,
and listen for the cracking of the storm's whip,
casting each spirit, one by one, to where they came
(Heaven or Hell, nobody quite knows).

Look up after the final bolt to see the rainbow
spilling into your eyes, you who decided
a long life drawn out slowly was better
than the opposite.