Young Writers Society

(dedicated to the girls who were injured or died in the Carmel Convent tree accident, and dedicated to my friend, who witnessed the horrible incident.)

I.
she tells me,
it opened like a flower-
mouth splitting into scream,
lips pried apart:
the dark inside of a mouth, of a scream,
of fated death-
girls running like roaches,
death following behind-

II.
she tells me she has seen death
too often. she tells me
of the girl who was found
dead with her lungs crushed, withered,
her throat a blank paper
where no breath writes no poems,
& how blood is the shadow of death
she can’t wash off, how
she sees a gravestone every time a tree
rises out of the pavement, cracked
earth, broken girls,
the shadow of death-

III.
i tell her how scientists have
never really been able to define
light, she says
light is only the distance
between darkness and death,
light touching the blank throat
of a dead girl, light breaking
the dark mould of lost, light becoming
the scream of a mother holding
her dead daughter, splintering the air
like a falling tree,
her, her standing behind the shadows,
pain- the blood she can’t
wash off-

IV.
she tells me it opened like a flower-
like a prayer, like a smile, like death
hiding behind all things pretty,
how we are all porcelain, because
broken porcelain dolls litter the ground now,
and broken boughs upon them, breath
knocked out of their lungs-

she tells me about the blood she can’t wash off.
i tell her i will write
a poem.
she asks me if poems
can bring the dead back.

I.
A teapot, a
memory, and the tip
of my burnt
tongue-
can i tell you a secret? sometimes,
i
pretend i am running
a circus-
i lay out the
plans, i dress up in
fancy clothes and laugh until
the world spins;
at
night-
i clean the cages
and feed the animals-
tomorrow i have
a show
a show
a face
a face
tomorrow i have
a day
and a person-
and a person to be- - -

II.
A teapot, a memory, and the tip
of my burnt tongue; can i tell you a secret?
sometimes i pretend i run a circus-
i paint the faces, i say
the lines. at night i lock the cages
and feed the animals-
do you know
what it is to feed a lion
that crouches in the dark of its
mind-
broken
and breaking
you, do you know
what it is to feed
a lion that becomes
what it is taught-
the predator and the
prey?
the prey-
the prey..?
do you know-
i am taught-
i am the predator
i am the prey.

III.
a teapot, a memory, and the tip of my scalding tongue. you are here. are you enjoying the show? you are here. the lion is a predator, but I it’s master. you are here and the show starts as soon as you look our way. you are here and my voice laughs different when you are here. i bring the lion. i bring my smile. i am laughing when i tell myself, it is the show, and you must dance like the world is watching.