Young Writers Society

Twenty-Four

Light dives through the great, gaping hole of my eye
and bends to the optic nerve on the far side,
focused, for me, by glasses so thick
they slip when the sweat on my nose gets too thick.

My brain pulls out colors from my memory,
from one tiny spot where we all truly see,
combines and extrapolates, paints me a scene
so I can deduce what the rays of light mean.

Reality passes through all our minds' sieves;
the disparate remnants become our beliefs.
All we can trust are the once-felt sensations
we had in the presence of part of creation.

When I say I miss you, what I mean to say
is representations on screens can't convey
the feeling, the scent, the sight, and the sound
of having your physical flesh form around.

I miss you. I miss you. I miss you, I vow.
So please won't you come and be near me somehow?

Twenty-Five: Boring

My parents dated seven years before they married.
I'm the same age now
as they were when they met,
in graduate school,
at a party for Dad's Taiwanese roommate--
you know,
as young people do.
Mom took pity on him,
translated the jokes
from Mandarin to English--
her major, by the way--
and so ensconced them both
in the airy brightness
of her now-faded accent,
an intimate meeting
in a crowd of strangers.

It's Saturday night,
and I'm sat on my couch,
quilt three times my age draped over my legs,
laptop open,
BBC's Death in Paradise on the TV,
minor piano arpeggios fading in and out,
alone,
boring.

Sonnet Five: Where Am I Even Going?

My tiny red corolla carries me
along the sprawling highways of our land--
drive east, a steady forty MPG,
and west, my mileage falls at the wind's hand.

The green of new spring fields spreads all around,
so flat I see the curvature of earth,
disrupted here and there by tiny towns,
and brown, intentioned squares of planted dearths.

The music that envelopes my small car
is bare enough to prop my focus up;
the loud, resounding synth-pop repertoire
must beget aid from caffeine in my cup.

I drive without a map or GPS;
Where am I going? Not e'en I can guess.

Lullaby for Those who Stay Up Too Late - Recording

Haha I cannot write piano accompaniment and also do not have recording things so it's a lil jank BUT.

Here's the recording!

Anyway thanks so much to everyone who followed the thread! Your comments and critiques were so lovely. It's so great to be back at napo after having to drop last year.