Young Writers Society

tornadoes (and other things)
Originally written in 2015

i am not your poetry.
you will never save me from my burning buildings
or make the rain stay in my clouds.
you will spend your whole life trying so hard, my darling—

and yet

i will come to your door every night anyway
the night terrors will too.
when you wake up screaming i will tell you about your handprint on my ribcage
about how i just can't seem to scrub it off.
here, i'll just lay beside you
wait till you whisper that sometimes you wish you could wake up dead.

you say no, you have to stand guard by your heart all night while my wolves howl
trapped underneath my skin stretched too tight
you say that's why i never sleep with you anymore.
i will whisper back that
i am a black hole meant to be a girl—
made of all consuming edges you can't pin down.


it burns and i want to go home. please, take me home.

what burns? the flames underneath your skin where i lit your bones on fire?
the place in the center of your clavicle where i put my tongue for safe keeping?
sure, i can't tell you i love you anymore, but at least i also can't tell you i hate you.

you will try one last time to kiss me with wild, reckless abandon
will whisper is this what you wanted me to do?
is this where you want to fall apart?

i am not your cup of tea. i burn the things that try to touch me.
why don’t you let me shatter—

icarus

i woke up this morning with my hands shaking
all i could think about was how van gogh ate yellow paint because he thought that was the secret to happiness, about how i kiss your lips as often as possible, because if yellow paint isn't the answer, kissing you must be.
i woke up this morning and my lips were blue and numb from the cold you left.
you forgot your wings. i left you 40 voicemails to try and tell you that, but
instead i just kept saying how much i loved you.
i still haven't heard from you, so i think i'll keep them. all i hear is the wolves howling my name and i can't help but think it was you that sent them to my door.
when morning comes all i can think about is how

i wish i could wake up dead.

i woke up this morning and felt my skeleton click back into place.
your wings no longer keep me warm so
i've had to start sleeping with my spine wrapped around me, a bone gate to keep out the noise of your wolves.
i couldn't stop thinking about those scars on your hand. couldn't stop thinking about how you told me your love was like a religion.
couldn't stop thinking about how you promised you'd never leave me.
couldn't stop thinking.
the wolves have chewed through the ivory fence. i think they're coming for me next. i tried on your wings but they don't fit right.

i woke up this morning with my heart no longer in my chest.
i kept thinking about how lately, my medicine cabinet has been full of bullets, about how
i've been walking in my frosted dreams trying to find a way out— you haunt them.
i'm sorry i took your wings. i'm sorry the wolves tore them to shreds.
i woke up this morning beside you with your hair tangled in my fingers.
the wolves were gnawing on my ribs.

you kissed my cheek and told me i was dead.

I thought it might be fun to do a little recap and discussion of the first 10 poems in this thread. I've seen a lot of poets sharing their thoughts in spoilers below their poems this year, and I really love hearing their insight and thoughts about the where, when, and why. So maybe, y'all will enjoy that from me too! If not, feel free to keep on scrolling for tomorrow's poem.

a letter to the mother of my teenaged self
this one is admittedly something i've had in the barrel for a long time. i'm currently working through some really deep, violate issues with my mom that are causing me to feel incredibly disconnected from my family. at the same time, i'm doing personal work to undo some pretty deep trauma relating to my childhood which is revealing a lot of things i would rather not know about myself or my parents. so, this was more an exercise for my inner teenager/my mental health than it was meant to be a perfectly scripted poem. i'm not super in love with the then/now structuring, and honestly will probably change that in later editing— but for now it stays. i do think there's some stuff in there that makes the poem really hook the reader in. but still, too raw and vulnerable to be well crafted at this point.

2/30
this poem is really just the line "i spend what feels like years walking up and down your spine" trying to find its home. you'll see that later in the thread, it still hasn't. i really love the imagery of it, so i really want to work it into the right poem, but so far i haven't really hit home. there's some okay stuff in here, but overall it's really just a peek into me actively trying to find the spot that line fits into. Sometimes it results in the rest of the poem just really lacking in color and image, which is okay! We just take what's good and move on to the next.

continuing to write poems about cowboys
this is one of my favorite things to do during napo. Just write a bunch of random shit and then throw it onto a post because it's good stuff, it's just not a fully fledged piece yet. i have pages and pages of notes of just lines and some of them are so good, so it's nice to have the opportunity to share them without feeling like they need to a. be polished or b. even complete. out of it all, i love stanza two. not my usual style, but i'm obsessed with the vibes.

incomplete
again, more workshopping, this is just even more loose and unconnected. stanza three has that great line about haunting dreams (which actually finds it's home a few poems later!). i also really enjoy the vibes of stanza one.

six years, gone
oof. grief is such a funny, funny thing. losing my nephew six years ago completely rocked my world and disintegrated my already pretty unstable sense of self. rebuilding that required a complete reworking of the way that i functioned, my perspective, and my priorities. i'm not kidding you when i say we did a full page one rewrite of peyton. and i developed such a stronger core identity out of that process, and also strengthened my sense of efficacy not just in general life, but in navigating tragedy and grief in a adaptive manner. Which is honestly a skill that helps me deal with losses smaller than death that still cause grief (like, losing a friendship). with that in mind, this poem is almost written for the person who had to be in the trenches for so many years before she reached this point of balance. i also thought it was important to highlight how each year of grief is different and can still, six years later, be so overwhelming. sure, i've gained balance. and yet, the missing still knocks me over. i still want him and miss him and love him. there's still nowhere to put that love. so, we write poems to have somewhere to put the missing.

musings on the love of my life
damn, i love writing poems about si. i never could really figure out romance poems before he came along. if you were around when i was an active before, almost every single poem i ever wrote was a story chronicling abuse, chaos, greed, exploitation of sexuality... basically toxicity. and i think it's important that i was telling those stories, because they were my lived experiences and transient feelings about those experiences come to life. however, there is something so much more satisfying and peaceful with the fact of knowing that i'm going to be writing poems about the same person, forever. that same look on his face after the first time i read him a poem about him will always light up his face. that steadiness has provided me with consistent inspiration for so many years now and i feel sooo glad that i get to spend the rest of my life writing poetry about my baby <3. and that i can also revisit those bad times sometimes to give perspective and reflection on my experiences as a young person.

7/30
more workshopping. i really like stanza one and three, but tbh i'm cooling on stanza two. i think it's too similar to other imagery i have, but not as strong.

tornadoes and other things
If you want to read the original iterations of this poem, check here and then here. I love to go back and rework super old things (hell, this is almost eight years old!) when i feel unmotivated or uninspired, because it reminds me how growth is always a forward motion and also that most of the problems with my poems just need a little distance, perspective, and a lot of editing. there's so much good i might not have necessarily seen in 2016, 17, 18... but now, 2023 peyton has the perspective to know what needs to go and what needs to stay, but also what is quality and can be made even better.

untitled
okay is this my april madness submission? lmk. i'm between this and musings on the love of my life or six years, gone. i'm just obsessed with this one. i think the imagery is strong and it's really clean. if it ends up being my AM submission, it will definitely need more editing and cleaning up, but i really think this could be it??? idk though, i love the other two as well. and who knows if i'll make it past the first round, there are so many amazing poets! so i need to really bring my a game. anywayyyy there's just a lot i enjoy about this poem and i think it's really good.

icarus
okay i also really like this one. a little bit is stolen from a poem I wrote in 2015, but I honestly think it's basically all new because of how much i changed the tone when i started writing this evening. it's kind of long, i might go in with the clippers again, but for now i think it's a great little poem to have as my number ten!


i'm really looking forward to the next ten. i'll come back and do another little recap then, this has been fun! it makes me feel really present in my poetic voice.

18+ TW: suicide

my medicine cabinet full of bullets
originally written in 2016

you get dizzy when you forget where you're going.
you think you're praying to all the right gods, yet you still end up in bed alone.

you hide your shotgun in your mouth, tell everyone you're fine.
hide all your little white pills in the sky and convince yourself they're the stars.

...

pretty boys with leather jackets and kisses like sunshine, hand me bullets
tell me to keep them in your medicine cabinet just in case.
they kiss me, clumsy and sad (almost not kisses at all)
i can't remember if i kiss back.
the truth is,
boys with rays of sunshine in their palms will never save me from a burning building.
(they will never make the rain stay in my clouds)

i cough and cough and still butterflies don't come out,


i kiss with wild, reckless abandon, and hope this is what death feels like.


the wolves wait by my bedroom window till i'm counting sheep
then,
they howl.
i wonder what they're saying, maybe they're lonely too.
sometimes they come in and gnaw on my ribs.


...

pretty boys tell you the wolves will come to your door every night
and the night terrors will too.
that the knocking will wake you up and when you try and decipher the morse code
it will spell out words that dig into your lungs to try and carve them out of your chest.

you are a black hole meant to be a girl.

when the sun rises you tell your mirror that you are not your own cup of tea.
(i burn myself whenever i try and breathe)

18+ Drug Use/TW: suicide

drug(s) of choice, #escapril prompt



the first time i drink alcohol, i feel the alcohol sliding down my throat like ribbons that sear the back of my tongue and nose.
it takes awhile to swallow around the knowing that this is poison, that my body is a temple and this will destroy every last stone.
that urge never goes away so i start to lean into the reckless danger of knowing that something has all consuming power over me.
too many boys use my body like a wasteland. i don’t pick up the pieces for a few years.

the first time i smoke cigarettes, i do it to get a boy to kiss me.

i know he likes sexy women and the only way i know how to be sexy is to kill myself.

but, slowly.
i am an expert in this. first i starve myself at breakfast, then i feed myself smoke and his smog tasting kisses for dinner.
he sleeps with me half the time, but most of the year he just leaves me with stones at the bottom of my belly instead of love.

the first time i smoke weed, i am in the back of a car and breezeblocks has been playing on repeat for ten minutes. It is 2018 and 24 degrees outside.
i do not care that it is freezing and my fingertips are cold and bloodless when they take the blunt. i am mature, i am an adult.
i smoked cigarettes sitting on picnic tables for six months.
the boy with dark eyes is heavy lidded next to me with the softest hands i’ve ever felt on a man. i want them on my skin forever.
he has slept with me and he still wants to be with me.
my edges are blurred. i throw open the windows of my life and hear them breathe.

the first time i take a dab, i am sitting on the edge of a mattress positioned below a window on the floor.
the bottom sheet has come off the bottom right corner and my eyes are filled with red-rimmed smoke that doesn’t leave the corners of my lungs
even when i cough
and cough, and cough. jesus, bro, does she have asthma or something?

no, she just swallowed the edges of herself when she inhaled and suddenly—
oh wow. i’m sweating.
pats on the back. it gets better and my friends show me where all the small places inside me are big enough to hold them.

the first time i take acid i realize my boyfriend is my soul mate.
there’s a portal in my ceiling and we tumble in and now i know that i am in love.
does he feel it? our skin thrums together and i make a nest inside his bones.
suddenly, i remember what it is like to not hear wolves in my head
he says, “welcome home” and i feel his heart settle against my chest.

@alliyah

my drug(s) of choice

18+ for drug use/suicide

the first time i smoke cigarettes, i do it to get a boy to kiss me.

i know he likes sexy women and the only way i know how to be sexy is to kill myself.

but, slowly.
i am an expert in this.

he sleeps with me half the time, but most of the year he just leaves me with stones at the bottom of my belly instead of love.

...


the first time i smoke weed, i am in the back of a car and breezeblocks has been playing on repeat for ten minutes. It is 2018 and 24 degrees outside.
i do not care that it is freezing and my fingertips are cold and bloodless when they take the blunt.

the boy with dark eyes is heavy lidded next to me with the softest hands i’ve ever felt on a man. i want them on my skin forever.
he has slept with me and he still wants to be with me.
my edges are blurred. i roll open the windows of my life and hear them breathe.

untitled.

the first time perfection cracks, it snaps so loud i think i broke a bone
and i spend 30 minutes checking each inch of flesh for the splintered skeleton
that i know must be poking through my skin

nobody can hurt that much without something to show for it.

i wrap my fingers around my bare soul and hold on tight, hoping i can squeeze
a little life back into what's left on my rotten, stinking, shell.

then, spend an hour washing the sinew from under my fingernails before I feel completely clean.

there's is no scrubbing the scent of it off. no sense in trying to reverse my damage

no matter how many showers i take, i'm still left with the same old worn out feet
trying to get me from somewhere to nowhere. no soap could ever rid me of the grime that's cacked in places i can't see.

i wake up, pack my spine into my bag and hope today will be better.
today will be the day with no mistakes in it. i just know it.

a sadness i can't spell out

the first time perfection cracks, it snaps so loud i think i broke a bone
and i spend 30 minutes checking each inch of flesh for the splintered skeleton
that i know must be poking through my skin

nobody can hurt that much without something to show for it.

i count every crack in my skin as an example of what happens when
a girl's edges get pinned down instead of escaping into infinity
like they should.

it feels like my fault, that i am not made whole by each new mistake that bubbles up under my fingernails. that it does not bring me joy to skin myself alive.

i keep trying to understand how someone can love themselves when they are so eternally unlovable to everyone.

in the meantime i pack my spine in my bag and take another step towards nowhere.
that's better than standing still than just waiting for the train to hit you, i guess.
just hurtle straight towards it or start racing next to it or run away from it as fast as i can—
it doesn't matter, the train is hitting me no matter what.

more revisions

your love for me is like a river
you flow too fast and i get washed away—
or there's only a trickle
and i feel myself becoming parchment


i know they didn't put this in the instruction manual when you found me but
darling, you have to pin me down if you don't want me pulled away by the wind.


i lost you, somewhere

i held onto your sleeve too tightly
prayed to the wrong gods. everything unraveled to pieces between my fingers.
just a bunch of yarn left, now.
i know they told you i would be okay without you but


sweetheart i spend all my nights wrapped in that stupid sweater of yours
and i still can't get warm, threads come undone too fast for me to keep up


i lost me too, somewhere else.
underneath the bedsprings or behind the shower curtain or
outside in the ditch beside the road—


when i whistled for myself— come here, boy! —all i heard was the wind trying to
carry me away
and the memory of your love flowing against my cheek.
if i can remember that, why is it so hard for me to remember what your name tasted like
when i didn't have a sandpaper tongue?


they told you that i'd need warm clothes and a bed to sleep in but


did they ever tell you i need someone to—
stay?