Young Writers Society

This is the part where I scramble to finish NaPo in four days because April has been rough, but I am stubborn.



Here's some takes on the classic "I am from" poem form - I may try to format in a more beautiful way later ~ but right now we're going for "done" rather than ~pretty~

-- 9. I am from layovers & standby lists

I am from every holiday split in half, straight down the center
of my heart, and two adults tugging at which half they thought was theirs
every December 26th spent at the airport, from the time I was 14,
observing my annual migration between home-&-home,
waiting, running, missing-flights & wishing I could carry lost time
in my suitcase wedged between the candy-canes & crushed Christmas-cards.

I am from every new year spent between two time zones,
but feeling like I'm always too late, too soon, too far ...

I am still feeling like there must be a less painful way to severe yourself in two.



& --- 10. I am from the land with sky stretched so far, you will never see where it ends, & no matter how far you move from home, you'll never quite get away

I am from fly-over country, & every flight you book for home is canceled,
& the gate agent cannot pronounce the name
of the town I'm flying to because he's never heard it said aloud,
he stumbles over my name too & I don't bother correcting him -
my mother is driving 2 hours to pick me up at the airport
with a lukewarm sub packed between two cans of once-cold soda,
& we will laugh the whole way back telling stories we've forgot
& all week they will greet me like I am a prodigal son,
30 years lost to dissolute-city-life, even though I come back every Christmas,
they pretend I am taller, but never any older, & I forgive their familiar questions
as they repeat these same where've you been's
again & again & again like overplayed holiday-music,
that rings in my ears even when the night-runs quiet
with only the lightning bugs & the stars left to hear -
& I never quite know what to say, because it feels like I've never left,
& I never will. & maybe I never really want to,
because this stretched out horizon is the only inheritance
that makes me think I might know who I am.



& ---- 11. I would try to explain to you where I'm from, but you won't understand unless you see the stars.

I am from the North, the West, the ambiguous belly-button of the states, somewhere that isn't there, between the river & the hill on the prairie-plains, & the sun-scorched grasslands, & the unending sky. You can see every star there. & every one says hello.

---12. We are all carved from this same plot of land & wedge of sky, this is our inheritance, this is who we are

We came here from coal mines, & railroad tracks. We survived house fires, and war-ripped brothers, and locust-years, & fathers leaving before their sons are grown. Maybe because we believed we would be different. But I am from where my father is from & where my mother is from, this land is written on the grooves of my bones, & I've already taught my children every verse of our family song before they know our name. I've been whispering map-keys into their ears before they've even been born. We're all the same here. We're all carrying field-rocks in our pockets, coal-dust in our shoe-treads, with centuries-worn hymns-humming at our lips. We're all telling each other Summer's around the next corner. We're all trying to leave, just as desperately as we're tracing the lines in our palms to remember our way back. We're all gritting river sand between our teeth & over-promising our see you soons. We're all carrying this same overgrown tree of expectations on our shoulders, roots wrapping tight around hearts, & veins, & hopes, & dreams & know these promises stretching miles & miles under river-plains & mountain-valleys are the only thing keeping this land from receding into the sky; the only thing steady enough to make us stand. We are all the same, every one. & it shows in how we're always trying to come back home.

@Meshugenah - THANK YOU SO MUCH for both comments! <333 30 poems will happen. yes.

@Euphory - Awe, thank you for the sweet encouragements <3 I'm so pleased that those struck you. Thanks for stopping by!

@starshipgirl - thank you very much for those comments! <3 & i think i may love ampersands a little too much. but it's okay!

a monthly musing

--- 13. April is heavy, this year

April is so heavy this year,
like the rain is trying to drag the river with her,
like the wind is full of rage & drifting closer, closer -
like i am being asked to carry a tornado in my lungs
like these ribs in my skin should crack-open
to accommodate your hurricanes,
like drowning is a simple exchange
for breathing air,
like all this winter
you were waiting to snap my wings
so that i couldn't fly

April is heavy, too heavy, this Spring,
but i never promised to carry her.

Wow, there's such a depth of imagery here I could keep reading all day and find new things to notice. I love the way you format your poems, it feels so personal and like I'm peeking into your journal. Good luck getting to the finish line! I'm anxiously awaiting your next poems!

Thank you everyone for cheering me on :') We're getting there! Half-way through!

@Rook - thank you! (there is a disturbing lack of chickens from thread thus far, but I still have some time to remedy that.) I like that image too!

@LadySpark - So sweet - thank you for reading & for your comments! I can't quite decide if 9 / 10 / 11 want line breaks or not yet, but maybe I'll play with it more later.

@BluesClues Awe thanks Blue! :')

--- 16. resisting the urge to delete old poetry, because i don't recognize her voice, & i feel like i'm eavesdropping on something i was never meant to hear. & so much life has passed. & everything sounds so horribly awkward from the vantage point of now. but maybe i will leave-her-be, maybe she didn't write this for me.

i am tip-toeing through my old poetry / trying to remain quiet like when you enter an ancient cathedral & know the saints are still immersed in prayer / & in a hushed reverence, in embarrassed-apology for my intrusion, i try to tell the author of these years-worn verses that time is vast & soft & just as infinitely the same as it is different - she knows all this of course, but maybe it helps to be told by a familiar voice. / they say lightning never strikes the same place twice / & maybe that's why we write poetry - because we long to see, even through a makeshift mirror of word & life, of prayer & sigh, amidst all this vast night, what we look like when our hearts are set aflame. / though sometimes i wonder, if it is wrong to linger watching such terrible, beautiful things for too long. / but then as if led by some familiar unbreakable intuition i begin these same prayer petitions again.

cw: potentially darker imagery

--- 17. i am ignoring her

there is a sheer wind
coming from the North today -
& i imagine these raucous birds
are shouting at me -
telling me, i'm too far from shore
& my mother doesn't like to swim -
& shouldn't i be a little more cautious
with all this baggage strapped to my back
you are too reckless She says -
only a small portion of shipwrecks are ever recovered
& i do not want to become one
(reckless, or shipwrecked, or recovered, or ...)
but drowning gives you very few choices
& i never learned how to fly.