Young Writers Society

2022 - senior year
2021 - I can make going to denny's sad (not posting these)
2020 - spring waits for no one
2019 - sometimes I hear the bell ringing
2018 - the man beneath the lamppost
2017 - How to Deal with the Buzzards Poking at Your Eyes
2016 - these are the words that are an offense to sanity

march 18th, 2023 - dead bird bingo

saw a dead robin spread out
between the yellow lines on the road,
wings tucked in and chest puffed out
against some invisible opponent,
or maybe the cars roaring by.
a couple blocks away,
the body of a goose
that had been thrown into the grass
slowly turning into bones,
a hollowed-out see-through chest,
the last few oily feathers
hiding glassed-over eyes
and the beaky smirk
of an animal pretending
it was only getting out of the way
because it wanted to,
not you heading its way.

mom says she heard
an avian flu's been sweeping through,
and that could be why
we play dead bird bingo
every time we go outside.
maybe? honestly, I don't know
how birds get hit by cars
in the first place, much less
in a way that doesn't - uh,
there's no polite way to put it -
paste them across the asphalt.
glancing blow from a windshield
or tail feathers caught in a wheel
or a mirror clocking a bird
in the head or outstretched wing,
bird crumpling and/or slamming
into the ground, dazed, bleeding,
seeing spots, splotches, black,
while the driver and any passengers
head off and go about their days,
maybe surprised in the moment
and taking a few deep breaths,
but forgetting it soon enough.

I hit a bird with my car once and this made me remember exactly how icky it was thanks

one time a squirrel jumped off a tree, bounced off my leg, and ran right next to my bicycle wheel for half a block like I was the boulder from indiana jones until it realized it could go sideways and darted off into the grass. I swore at it in public with several people nearby.

march 28th, 2023 - rachmaninoff's last concert

in the middle of his performance,
he plays chopin's second sonata,
best known for its funeral march.
it's a coincidence. he loves chopin.
everyone loves his chopin.
something about the complex voicing
and romantic flair and clear notes
really strikes a chord with him,
if you will. there's no recording
I can find, if there's any at all,
but I have to imagine he plays the funeral march
in front of the university of tennessee crowd
like he plays everything else -
faithfully, never too soft or too loud,
as little pedaling as possible,
all the grace and dignity
of black suit/dress/umbrella
pallbearers and preachers and weepers
in-between the trees under the cloudy sky.
nobody in the auditorium has any idea
that he'll be dead in a month,
least of all the pianist himself,
who, despite fighting off a cough
and some back pain, at 69 years old,
is still one of the best in the world.
he moves on from chopin and breaks out
some of his own pieces -
the etudes-tableaux, I believe
the graceful no. 4 and frantic no. 6.
a man so obsessed with death
he can't help but slip the dies irae
into the background, the melody,
the counterpoint, wherever he feels like,
and does he even know anything's wrong?
he just thinks he's getting old.
he's been touring a little too much.
he plans on taking a break soon,
heading back to california,
spending more of his time composing.
what would he have done
if he'd had the time?

here's a philip glass piece I feel very normal about

april 1st, 2023 - professional behavior

oh, he's someone else,
he's someone who can
set up that test properly
and fill out that paperwork
and go talk with the project manager
and read through pages
of dense legalese
and drive back home a little early
(maybe buy groceries or gas up)
and fill out that other paperwork
and wave at strangers
and make himself at home
in his little corner
of the world, and I
have to shove myself
into his back-straight
smiling striding chipper body
because people like him
and he knows how to do things
(or, at least, he can pretend
he knows how to do things),
even if I have to keep
popping my neck
and swallowing whatever
tries to claw its way
up my throat
and fighting the urge to sit down
or hunch a little
while my feet are screaming
at me, because
that wouldn't be professional,
would it?

april 2nd, 2023 - the intersection of third and fourth avenue in gooding idaho

well, I heard a few people in town
pitched in money and/or their hands
to put up a bunch of plastic slides
and make and paint little wooden farmhouses (obviously)
and stairs and ramps and ladders leading up to them
and swingsets and monkey bars and benches
and whatever else, I dunno,
I was kind of distracted at the moment.
what I do remember is they knew themselves so well
they also put down a ton of concrete barriers
around the playground in case some farmer
hauls ass down the country road
and can't stop or swerve in time,
which kind of raises the question
of why they'd build anything there
if there's a non-zero chance
of traumatizing a bunch of children,
but I can't do anything about it,
so, whatever.

april 3rd, 2023 - in the april sun

all the creek quiet
except for a patch of reeds
nestled between trees
growing sideways out of hills
and a few of those new
two-story sun-yellow townhouses
too close to the road
to hear all of that
chirping and chattering
coming from some birds
I can't even see
from where I'm standing
on the sidewalk.
red-winged blackbirds?
they're loud, but too large
to hide, and they usually
keep to themselves.
barn swallows could hide
by the water, but
they love making clouds
in and around the nests
they dart into and out of,
like black and orange swirls
in some impressionist painting.
robins keep to trees;
house finches settle in bushes;
goldfinches make quiet warbles;
blue jays just scream;
that'd be more chickadees
than I've ever seen
in one place,
and I probably should get going,
because it's not like
I'm going to figure this out,
but I don't know if they'll be there
the next time I come around,
and I'm tired of waiting
until it stops snowing,
I don't wake up
to frost on the windows,
and the trees and flowers
and bugs and beasts remember
they're supposed to be alive
in the april sun.

april 4th, 2023 - reciprocal

of course (most of the time)
in a week most of your symptoms
go away, except for the occasional
cough or runny nose or goosebumps
rippling across your arms and legs,
plus generally having trouble
finding the energy to go downstairs
and get breakfast, and you think,
the way things are going,
you'll wake up the next morning
and feel normal, but nope,
tomorrow you're still a little sick,
body aching or head pounding
or heart skipping a couple beats
just long enough to remind you
you're not out of the woods yet,
and not the day after, or
the day after that, or
however long it takes you
to forget what it was like
before you got sick,
and then you're back to normal.

april 4th, 2023 - generic orchestra music

god I love generic orchestra music. go on,
make all the sections stick to a single note
or some common chord progressions/motifs so the audience
can tell how Dramatic and Tragic this scene is;
throw in enough timpani that it doesn't matter
if there's anything complex going on,
because the audience won't hear it;
give the violins top billing, people love
to hear those rising and falling eeeeeees
if it's loud enough to drown out
any interplay between the instruments
(you could even replace the violins
with a chorus, and have the same effect).
constant climaxes, endless repetition, a footnote
in so many shows and movies that it'd be weird
not to have it around, even if the fact
that it exists matters more than what it sounds like.

april 5th, 2023 - college dorms

cw: blood and drug references

another stumble-walk down the buzzing hallway,
sniffing constantly and holding a hand under my chin
(I don't remember being lucky enough
to find a kleenex while throwing myself out of bed
and fumbling my way to the door),
having trouble seeing anything
other than dim yellow lights along the walls
and some gray-purple carpet hiding
god knows how many years of bloodstains
and spilled drinks and weed smoke
and whatever else a generation of college students
got up to, and here I am, writing history
all over the floor as I head into the bathroom
and turn the faucet and stare at the sink,
watching the water ripple red every couple seconds,
and eventually shoving cheap rough paper towels
up my nose and pinching my nose and staring at the mirror
and starting to make out all the new red splotches
on the blue pajamas I'll have to throw in the washer
tomorrow, I'm not doing it now,
I just want to go back to sleep.

it's three in the morning
when I get the nosebleed to stop
and I think I'm alone
until I stop at the edge of the bathroom door
and see him out the corner of my eye
passed out on the couch, bucket in front of him,
a friend sitting on either side. I walk over,
say hello, ask how he's doing. and they say hello
(bloody nose? yeah. sorry about that. it's whatever.),
he's fine, threw up a little bit,
but he's asleep now, he'll have a hell of a hangover
in the morning, etc. etc. what happened?
he got carried away, nobody was paying attention,
someone made a dare, he got a bunch of free beer,
I've seen him like this enough times
that even in the moment whatever they're telling me
goes in one ear and out the other. I've heard it before.
but, even while we're all brushing it off,
there's barely enough room in this room
for us and that elephant, trunk huffing over my shoulder,
horns scraping against the popcorn ceiling,
flapping ears tilting the picture frames.

october 5th, 2022 - observations on the long road to idaho

xxvi. how the night pounces
like a panther with the stars on its back
glimmering over our heads
as it slashes at the orange sunset,
drives it away, rests on our car
so the mountains turn into outlines
and the road shrinks to the size
of our headlights, crawls between us
and sets itself on our laps
so that we, alone together,
head into the dark.

april 6th, 2023 - they haven't been around in years

before the city paved the land over
and put up fences and lampposts
and laid out turf, maybe
in the vain hope
of bringing them back,
I'd walk or bike by a school
I didn't even go to
so I could watch the killdeer -
round bodies, long legs,
white and gray feathers,
little round beady eyes, faces
somewhere between confident
and smug - skitter around in the dirt,
keep their distance from me
and the cars and the crows
and squirrels and rabbits
and even each other,
anything that could possibly
be a threat to them.
of course, not enough
that they'd fly off, because
that'd be too much effort,
and, unlike a lot of other birds,
they knew they could just
walk away from most their problems,
that it'd take much more
than some bored teenager
to scare them off for good.

april 7th, 2023 - leadville

up two miles high,
laying down on a couch,
arm dangling over the side,
legs stretched out over the arm,
weight on my chest
and a wheeze in my breaths
and a tingle in my fingertips
and it takes the world
a second to catch up any time
I turn my head, but I barely even notice,
I've been stuck in a cramped car
for the last day or so
and I haven't showered in three
and haven't got a good night's sleep
in about as long, so this is paradise
to my scattered little brain,
my eyes drifting between the exposed beam
industrial fan ceiling
and my friends walking around/
tugging on the fabric of/
nodding their heads at
rows of multicolored clothes
set on racks, while behind them
employees stitch and sew
very expensive sweaters
shirts and hats and jeans
and what have you
(and I'm debating buying something,
because apparently this place only opens
a couple times a year,
and the clothes are good enough
that someone in the group
asked everyone else
if we'd mind a detour
on the way back from utah
through narrow mountain roads
with less barriers on the edges
than there really should be
and steep inclines
and half-destroyed abandoned mining towns
littered among the valleys and cliffs,
all to get here,
but I'm not sure
my parents would appreciate
the credit card bill,
so maybe I'll just get ice cream
from the store down the street),
and, most importantly, someone's old golden lab
curled up by the front door,
occasionally opening their eyes
or letting out a tiny yawn,
but otherwise soaking up the sunlight
pouring in through the windows
in silence.