Young Writers Society

like lolita, it draws me and screws me and spits me out in such a spasm of shame
but still i ask for your audience by name and i get a foot thrust out rudely and i paint its toenails again
and again and then
i am content.

I once thought I could bottle my voice in a jar.
Just unscrew the lid and lift it to my face like communion
and smell a history of honey or jam--sweet
like the scented markers they warned me never to eat
(but why then would they ever make them
such a devilishly tempting treat?)--sweet
like the odor from my late grandpa’s bedroom
textured with the layers of dust and mothballs
and a ham radio humming under a penitent cross.
Lift the cold glass to my mouth, seal it
against my flesh, and maybe if I were hesitant,
pause for too long,
vacillate in limbo,

I would suffocate or
shatter the jar with my vacuum.

after a beat you said “skipping stones with my father
across the river back home.”
“i thought you hated him.”

“i thought i did, too.” without a word,
you stood and sloughed off my arm;
threw the jar as far as you could
and watched it it dash across the street.

Jiggity wrote:I went looking for this just to berate you for not posting but it would seem the error was mine, in not looking beyond the first page. My apologies, sir. Keep it up.