you can still hear the crowing of the neighborhood’s roosters as the sun rises. there’s still puddles littering gravel parking lot that sits besides the fairgrounds. the library always adorns its windows with themed decorations and the middle school always congratulates its students in pixelated purple outside its asphalt gates.
when you stand in the high school’s gym, it still has the mustiness of the old textbooks locked away in the storage closet.
but they’re tearing down fifty years of history and asbestos in the bathroom tiles this summer.
you take a deep breath, feeling longing settle heavy in your chest, and hope that your mind will remember the sprawling halls and mismatched lockers that your body will someday forget.
your parents told you to shine like the cosmos you were named for, but you can't see the glimmer of their dying suns past the red rain falling from the ceiling.
you don't know how to turn the space debris in your pocket into a new beginning. maybe that tourist from danerth (who was too busy flipping through his checks to notice a skeleton of a boy reaching into his coat) would know how to leave this planet's rotten core.
as you finger the stolen debris, you wonder why your parents would want you to be made of light and fire when everyone on xelea knows that the guards dispose of the broken lights that burn too fast and too bright.
“boys will be boys” they say but i’ve never seen a boy who’s long hair made me question my femininity.
i’ve never looked at a boy’s thick denim jeans and old sneakers and old town t-shirt and imagined myself standing there instead.
i’ve never thought that someone would someday see me leaning against my 2008 subaru and question what my face looks like underneath my mask because my posture and curves of my body scream female, but my clothes hint at a masculinity that i finally managed to possess.
we’re not cute commodities to be sold for a profit. we’re young and just us. we’re Xs among men. we’re what society didn’t want until they could stick a price tag onto our adventures. we’re the revolution that burns in spiral dna. we’re the mutants and metas. we’re the rogues and freaks.
we don’t follow your rules. you can’t rewrite our stories and tie us to the box office. we’re freedom and adrenaline and the rushing of the wind as we dart into alleyways and listen to the police sirens as we hide in the darkness and perch above the rooftops.
Hey Mage! I'm really enjoying your NaPo thread! I love the imagery in "longing". I can totally picture the setting and it reminds me of my high school. I am obsessed with "gender crisis at a gas station". I think it's just so well done. The descriptions, the voice, the way the story unfolds. It's just really, really solid.
Thanks, @Charm! longing was the poem that inspired me to rename this thread to its current name, so I'm glad the imagery really stuck out to you. And gender crisis at a gas station was is definitely one of the most unique poems I've ever written, so I'm really happy you liked that one, too!
standing in the shower with the water pounding on my skin, i realized i had become a visionary.
castles sprawled before my closed eyes. i could see the roughness on the corners of each stone block. i could follow the neverending spiral of forgotten passages into the dark dungeons down below and feel a chill as a cold wind blew through a broken window.
i could stand in the streets and listen to the chatter of the elves selling their wares as a group of armor-clad guards bumped into my shoulders on the way to their next shift.
i could feel the soft earth underneath bare toes and hear the humming of the crickets as lightning bugs swarmed the twilight around me. i could dance underneath the moonlight and towering oak trees and feel the forest swing with me, too.
and when i opened my eyes and gripped the wet, metal faucet in my wrinkled hands, the forests and kingdoms and towns were just as real as the water dripping off the hair plastered to my forehead.
Mage!!! gahh you have some awesome poems in your thread so far <33 I love how you're able to establish such a strong sense of voice and then keep it consistent through so many poems, it links them together really beautifully c:
I just adore the imagery in your latest one, it's so vivid and uses so many senses ^^ the second stanza is my favourite I think - especially "i could follow the neverending spiral / of forgotten passages / into the dark dungeons down below" - but honestly they're all awesome :)
also young and just us is so intense and almost melodramatic? in the absolute best way possible :D Your use of short snappy sentences is really effective in this one!
Keep up the wonderful poeting Mage! <3
When you're faced with something you don't understand, I think the most natural thing but also least interesting thing you can be is afraid.
I have no idea how I never saw your comment here, but thanks, @whatchamacallit! I'm really glad you enjoyed my poems. I was worried that my voice in my poems wasn't really consistent, so I'm glad that wasn't the case. c:
Also, it's great that young and just us came across as intense/melodramatic! That seems to be the vibes of found family superhero groups, so I really wanted to convey that. (I was especially inspired by SJ Whitby's Cute Mutants book series!)
[There was a poem here, once, but it's been taken down to be submitted to my college's literary magazine! It might be posted again someday, but hopefully it'll be in the literary magazine instead.]
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