Young Writers Society

text version:
how many times have you trusted
paper boats to carry all your dreams
along this ever-shifting sea,
i am no expert on sails or oars
for i am only the moon and my waters
only the stars turned by heaven's tide's,
but could i ask you to make that raft
which holds your hope a little more sea-worthy,
i see you spitting out water and pretending
you're only smiling at the river day after day - i know
the truth is you can't live long without breathing,
please do try to keep your head above water,
i can not carry you where you need to go,
my arms are full of other worlds and
you're far too unbounded, but might you at least
consider that all these haphazard waves
might be too much for you,
i won't say i'm in love
but i do hate
to see you drown.

Author Note: All the words from the poem are in the spiral / water ripple in the first version above, which had the text generated with https://www.festisite.com/text-layout/spiral/ before I manipulated it and added one of my origami doodles. I kind of like that it is illegible in the first version as I firmly believe poetry doesn't always have to be read to portray meaning. Thanks for reading!

@atlast thank you so much for the kind comments! <3 Glad you enjoyed the combinations of imagery in there.

Thanks a lot @Liminality! Things are feeling a little scattered in theme but I'm hoping some of the visual and imagery motifs at least tie things together. I really like the circular doodle I made for poem 1 as I see at both a hollow earth and a god-like silhouette in one.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, and I'm glad that mood came across with the speaker!

text:
i could have almost fallen in love
with the way you've carved
our names; into the sycamore trunk
except the letters are shaped
like all these unhealed wounds
and the scars all feel heavy
as if they were carved into my bones
and you should know by now
that isn't the way
you spell my name.

text:
it is unfortunate how we learn to fold ourselves infinitely smaller,
to demand less space, and hope the world steps over our dreams disguised as ant hills, becoming less and less, as every rib, and lung, and laugh gets creased in half, thinned down and weighed carefully hoping our elbows don’t extend too far, or brush up against anyone who would mind our sheer existence.

one day might the memory of feathers demand we unfurl our hidden-selves, straighten out these crunched-in arms with wing stretches and attempt flight.

one day might you know, you are enough in all of yourself,
and if you dared to fly, even the sky
could not contain you.

Brother, {sister, grandfather, mother of
another generation, hand meeting
hand meeting hand meeting mine,}

centuries fold like silken scarves – and time
is a river that doesn’t stop. don’t grow farther away.

this comes with our Regards,
and every well-wish one could hope for another – tied to
the stars so you’ll be sure to catch them. I wish you full sunshine and good harvest,
I wish you light work and warm meals, I wish you steady ships, and that
you would always be welcomed home.
I wish you'd come and stay a whole winter

if you happen to find this message, if my love lodged into a glass bottle and thrown into the sea finds its way

we want to hear from you

{then what other proof do we need that
we are each echoes of a wave made long ago and heaven is near
and ghosts can hear and maybe we're not all so terribly far apart.}

could you spare you voice, for me to hear, perhaps we would know the same stories, told from different edges

give us a detail of the family
cut a lock out of your hair to save, or tell me what
my name means, explain all these illegible margin
notes you’ve left, or sit awhile until the day breaks

{sometimes even when I’m home, and all my memory
settles low in the river valley, I wonder still
where I am from, beyond just map lines, and
changing tides, I want to know the origin of all these
loose ends, learn whose voice these words belong to,
trace root grooves back to the seed, fill in hollow grooves}

hoping our letter will shortly find you and yours

if not today, tomorrow, or tomorrow’s tomorrow, or whenever the last grain of time’s sand
settles out of the river, when the birds return, when the harvest is in, when we meet again.

holy smokes! I absolutely adore your use of art and poetry. the aesthetics are seriously jaw-dropping. I love that you are painting a story through words and visuals, and it's been done so well. I really love the tidepool poem visual but I gotta say "castaway prayers" is my favorite. there's something hauntingly beautiful about the minimalist visual - like the bare emptiness and slow-burn breaks ending in loneliness. but the raw text is even better - the alignment from left to right is perfection and provides a visual shift of tone & determination. the message behind it is also subtle and *chefs kiss*

anyways am done fangirling now but I just want you to know that adore all of this and love the abstract angle you're taking :,)

@Liminality Thank you again so much for your comments and thoughts! <3

Re: 'castaway prayers' -> "Deus absconditus" or "The hidden God" is a theological concept that Martin Luther writes a lot about that I was very interested in during grad-school, not just that there are parts of God that we can-not know (which is not something very unsatisfying for someone with a philosophical inclination that really wants to know all the answers) but that sometimes God's will or God's presence are hidden by God from us purposely for reasons we might not know or understand, and most distressingly -> in times of trouble. I think it could be somewhat applied to other concepts outside of God of knowing firmly that goodness, or love, or family are present even when they have been hidden or separated from us. For me the topic of the poem was making sense of how I (or other faithful people like Job, or Ruth, or Elijah) can still have full faith in God, and confidence in God's existence, while sometimes feeling like His presence has been removed. The first stanza was brooding over the "removed- & lonely feelings" while the 2nd stanza is the confidence in knowing there is still something "beyond on the corner of the horizon". I'm hoping it is still accessible at some level to people who have faith in other things outside of God - > but I think everyone who has faith in "something" at some point feels that something is removed -> that's where faith has to kick in. Hope that makes sense, thanks for asking!

On the letters one -> I took a little turn with it this year, as it's a whole different relative's letter that I found. But it's neat being able to read into their imagined voices and think of what I might say back. And I totally agree it's interesting how many ideas just spin around in a circle from year to year. Thank you again for your comments Lim!!<3

@Carina Ah :') that is all so sweet Carina! Going for kind of simply art motifs but I'm liking how it's coming together too, and glad that it is coming across well. You're super artsy yourself, so I really appreciate the comments and encouragements. <3

Text:

Author's Note little origami boat + photo is mine as well. Not quite sure this needs to be said but the boat / sea imagery is a metaphor for hospice / dying. Have been around people in the process of dying more this year than ever, and it's certainly an experience that sticks with you to be able to accompany someone to the end of this life.

Text:
weather-worn hand, grasps at invisible swords with which to fight against
the sea-monster that has entered her room. i take a fighting stance, and brace
the ship for impact, padding her forehead dry from unkempt waves, and feverish unease,
everything is safe, i say again, choosing my words like medical tools, worrying 
even as the bandages are secured, that the tissue is cut too deeply to heal, 
and i know better than to make false promises,  but as a mother might smooth 
a bandaid over just for dramatic effect, i am smoothing over every word 
in my vocabulary that i know to be true, and sifting out everything else 
there is rain on the horizon. but the sun will still be there. you are loved.
"terminal" is such a cruel word. there is no bright side, or glass half-full, 
only heaviness and i see it weighing as again the sea becomes agitated,
and i've ran out of smoothing words to give, so i hum and sit and mark-out 
map keys in our breath-keeping, she asks for her dog to be moved closer to the kitchen, 
but her dog is dead, and we are in a hospital room so i pick up an oar and begin to row
with the psalms from my water-logged prayer book becoming sea shanties, 
pointing out the stars as we travel, and straining my ears to hear her age-cracked voice
above the raging sea so we can continue our truth telling, and i listen until it begins to rain.