Young Writers Society

I absolutely love "Cake," Hannah. It's gorgeous.

Hannah-twin, I really love reading your poetry. It's so frank and sweet and real. I really, really just loved "I should have left my number" (if I got the title right). You should just be doing this every day forever.

{Thank you, bubblewrapped! ^__^ And, Cloluff, I love yours too. -hops over to see the newest-}

April 5th, 2009;

i told you so, you fucking idiot

i told you to be careful,
then i told you not to care.
and every step you took
was a step towards misery.
i told you, but still you walked.
you tumbled blindly forward
as you used to. as you shouldn't.
i told you not to -- i told you
that you should look and watch
and be wary, but you didn't.

and now look what you've done.
your red ribbons are dirty -- impure,
and they hang down your neck
like broken, empty bodies of lust.
and i can see the shattered pieces
of your heart. you let them fly
carelessly -- now they coat the floor.

i told you! i told you!
is this how you exact your revenge:
leaving shards, coated in melancholy,
writhing in the pool of pain you left,
for other innocents to find?
because you were wrong,
you condemn others to bleed with you?

i told you not to let it go.
i told you to keep a tight hold
of it -- not too tight, so as to choke
and die. but tight.
use both hands to hold it.
you kept it under only a finger.

and now look what has happened.
you can't hold back anything anymore:
the salt fights to leave
through whatever window it might.
i told you so. i did.


April 5th, 2009;

fool

To find the definition of a fool, you won't have to look far.
It's not hidden in the house plants, or strapped around a star:
just look at me.


April 5th, 2009;

So, who wins now?

If only you were weaker, it would be you, not me
that trembled and apologized, that begged to set love free.
If you were plainly faulted with excusable, weak traits,
I'd feel compelled to note them, then relieve them of their weight.

I'd tie your homely looks, love, to a rubber, blue balloon.
At your cute, awkward behavior, I'd balk and then I'd swoon.
I'd make you painfully aware that you were second rate,
but I'd forgive you all your faults, and set that urgent bait.

For as soon as I was merciful, you'd throw yourself at me.
Too bad it's I who's weaker: I'll never be set free.

First of all, we wrote it makes me want to cry because it's like, well, it's like, you know how you feel things sometimes that you just cannot describe? And then you come across something that captures the feeling absolutely perfectly? That's how I feel about the poem.

And I love all of them, but especially the last one.

April 5th, 2009;

Love Gone Sour -- on sale, today only

what a lovely bittersweet taste this elixir has.
what did you say it was called again?

that, my dear, is Love Gone Sour, left out too long,
ignored for days, sprinkled with the slightest
pinch of sarcasm for texture.

how exquisite. it's quite thick and rich.
and this batch is so jussulent,
it's running down my chin. cloth?

here you are, wipe with your hand.
that liquid, love, that slithers down,
is made from hot tears of angst and
the blood from abused hearts
collected at the peak of melancholy.

how deliciously ludicrous.
and how much is a pint of this?

my darling, you can't possibly think
that a mixture of this can be owned?
it can only be tasted and savored
and swilled around on dirty, ruined tongues.
and even for a taste, madame, it will cost
at least twenty four hours of sorrow and
perhaps a swatch of your soul.

what? so much expense for the possession of
crude oil mixed with color? you swindle, surely.

no, my honey bee, I assure you
that this heartache and pain
is of the finest quality from here to Beijing.
and, even if you disagree, the payment
has already been extracted from your being.
you will never be whole again.

(These adoring comments are going to get really tiring, but) I like that one.

April 6th, 2009;

the blackbird says 'brrr'

red-winged blackbird, singing in the tree,
won't you fly down and teach your song to me?
tell me of the world as you see it from the air.
teach me how to fly -- being grounded isn't fair.
it's all i've ever wanted, bird, the freedom in your wings:
to take my leaden heart away from faded, ugly things --
from being taught monogamy before we're taught to love,
from cacti shoved in eye-sockets, from sticky, leather gloves,
from the need to rank our interests, from the rancor of the heart,
from the aching that i feel when my dreams and talent part.
they say i cannot fly, my friend. they say i'm doomed to fail,
but i think that if i only had a feather from your tail,
that i might gain your spirit, prevent my hope from going stale.

red-winged blackbird, i'm trapped within this dome.
but with only a few wing-beats, a bright whistle, you are home.
i wish that i could rise above, and sprout some feathers too,
then i would dip and i would dive and tumble-roll with you.
we could dance between the willow-arms. we could stumble on the wind.
we could sink into the pull-out clouds, mock the summer as she grinned.
we could gather up the tree dust and bring it home to keep.
and only when we'd flown our fill, would we consider sleep.
and then we'd forget our manners. we would scoff at petty sins.
perhaps that day, bird, i'd forget where calumny begins.
so, bird, please give me your feather, for without it i will die!
i cannot stand this torture that society calls life!
no! don't leave me here! (then there was only sky)

but i think that if i only had a feather from your tail,
that i might gain your spirit, prevent my hope from going stale.

This is lovely ^_^

April 7th, 2009;

I love you [s]forwards and[/s] backwards

Gargle with music notes and compose with tears,
then dress your wounds with acid,
bandage them in flames and ash,
and exact revenge with linen, honey,
polished spears of toothache plant.

Confess your love on melded, red wires, but
build towers with scented stationary in blue.
Dress in molten honey, cover your bread with overalls,
and nourish gardens of dream-blossoms with
only damaged bits of lost hope.

And can you see the tears fall down my face,
because who is to say the world won't end tonight?
If my last goodbye will be the first time
that I ever say hello, how can I live?
I won't even have to, in the last twilight.

When we sit together under the fire-bloom,
I can sing with my heart and think with my throat
and love with my mind. And love you.
Where I should have loved myself,
instead my soul clings to you.

You need to just send me a book of your poems.

And can you see the tears fall down my face,
because who is to say the world won't end tonight?

This, and the last stanza, are my favorites. The whole poem is just...heartbreakingly sweet.

-loves it-
-loves you-

Seriously, this made me cry. I knew you be able to finish this.

And can you see the tears fall down my face,
because who is to say the world won't end tonight?
If my last goodbye will be the first time
that I ever say hello, how can I live?
I won't even have to, in the last twilight.

This is my favorite stanza. Simply breathtaking.

~Angel

April 9th, 2009;

take-off

Between plastic, blue seats, supported by colonies of abandoned gum, and convenient meals that exchange the same amount of fat for an inflated price (a few more dimes, por favor), life thrives and twists and moves, grows grey wings of steel, blinking red courage, and, after consideration, sacrifice, and sometimes tears, resolves to follow the yellow worms of plans that line up blindly behind one another, expressing a necessary path if one is to win over black, hardened immobility.

Unintentionally submitting shreds of themselves to a stew of of missing-loved-ones-but-moving-on, stray hairs and dead skin fall off without purpose. Then Roderigo or perhaps Ismael, with a broom of perceived humility, is, in truth, the collector, guard of thousands of histories: this hair's grandfather once wooed the mother of this dead skin, though neither knew directly.

And three generations ago, before these walls were built, mortared with dreams, there was a rusted bike here, and it leaned against an oak tree and asked if they were to be there forever, together. And the tree hesitated and froze and only his hair moved, wispy in the faltering breeze. And the bike asked once more and leaned away from the beloved bark to better see the branches that would betray intent.

The branches said "no", and hung still as the breeze defected to worthier scenes. Soon the tree was gone -- torn away by calloused hands, but for the bike? Perhaps her rust is buried under new layers of love and luggage carts. Or maybe she was rolled away in the hand of a scooter or a fox.

"Now boarding at Gate Three-hundred and Twenty One."

Time to leave and the restless seats burst out into action as the over-turned anthill that once buzzed peacefully beneath the oak tree.

April 10th, 2009;

Wanted: junk and unused autos

Classic towing and recycling:
give me your rusting, decrepit junk
because you can't bear to feed him oatmeal,
can't handle watching his hands shake the newspaper.

I'll take the unused off your hands:
you don't need his parts anyways.
Fifty for the experiences in Paris,
and the same for his time at Harvard,
twenty for each tire and the hubcaps too,
and perhaps an even hundred, my friend,
for the fairytale romance he had with his wife.
You never knew her, so you won't mind.
You never cared to ask either, right?
Perhaps, then since the part is so well-preserved,
used so little under your care,
I can part with a hundred twenty-five.

Yes, I pay in cash, immediately,
and pick-up runs seven days a week.
Just tell me when (even Sundays
when he's at church, praying for your love,
that you won't send him away, because
he never sent you away -- even on Sundays)
and I'll be over to get the material.

And, of course, no problem.
I'll take your old Volkswagen too.



April 10th, 2009;

for april 8th

April 8th was a stupid, ugly, rainy, ex-boyfriend-type day.
Basically, nothing happened. I had orange juice in the morning.
And it burned like stomach acid. So I chased it with some toast.
Then I went to school and died, basically.
Because they chopped me into little pieces of social retardation,
and then fed me to Kelly and her sharks with perfect teeth
(sixteen rows of them, in fact: one for every boob-job).
Because I knew who Thomas Hardy was, because I read his poem,
and because apparently that makes me an emo slut.
Then they told my boyfriend I was emo and ugly and a slut.
That I was cheating on him with a boy named Tom Hardy,
and that he deserved more than me, even Kelly or her hair.
So, then I ran home before three o'clock and haven't
been back to school since, to those ugly gossip-mongers.
And from now on, I'm pretty sure I'll never like April 8th.
And also, the sun is kind of like my mind -- burning.
Gasoline burns clean, I think. I hope it burns the house.
Grrrrrrrr.

Hannah, I adore for april 8th and your prose poem is really lovely.



Ta,
Cal.