Young Writers Society

When you were four, your adult sister took care of you for a week while your parents were away. You believed they were gone for years. This is because time is twisted by memory like ink and water. Speaking of water- yes, I know how much water a person needs to drink to stay healthy. Yes, I know how much water a person needs to cry to stay healthy. It's just enough to keep the heart chilled until the right person comes and melts it. And yes, I will remember to wear my coat when the weather's cold and brush my teeth and never swallow facts just because they're sweet. When I was four, I got lost in a grocery store, only I didn't know I was lost. I didn't see you move to the next aisle and you are so much a part of me that I still felt you with me. Now, I will leave for college but I'll still feel you with me. This is because memory has a way of infusing through time like ink in water. Speaking of water- no, I won't wear floaties while swimming. No, I will not run from strangers. No, I will not believe kissing is gross. When I was four and you took me to kindergarten, I cried because I didn't want to leave you. I am not four anymore. I know you still see me with bangs and velcro shoes because time has a way of confusing memory like water to ink. But please know that even when I leave you, I will still feel you with me. That is because parents have a way of coloring hearts like ink through water. So I will look both ways when crossing the street, remember to tie my shoes, and always love you.

dawn breaks, splitting the clouds; spears of light shining brightly, and in the aftermath, she stands. beauty unparalleled. suspended on fantasy; a true mystery. red hair, like the dawn; eyes as dark as a forest at midnight. she smiles sly, eyes flashing brightly. a hint of fang, a preternatural gleam in her eyes; suddenly, she bursts into flames--and, as she burns, she laughs. hauntingly. horrifically. a sound beyond compare. dark breaks, splitting the clouds; smokes rises up, billowing, and in the aftermath, she still stands. beauty unparalleled. suspended on fantasy; a true mystery. eyes flashing brightly, she burns. beauty unparalleled, suspended on fantasy; a true mystery. she laughs. hauntingly. horrifically. a sound beyond compare.

Can't you see, I am unsure of myself? I am trying to condense myself. To shrink so many parts of me. I am trying to compress my waistline, so if I wrap my hands around it they will touch in the back and the front. Oftentimes, a lack of self-worth is stronger than a corset. I want a smaller ribcage - so I can't fit anything inside. Not dirt or flowers. Not shiny gum wrappers or cigarette butts. Not cotton-stuffing. I am attempting to look little. But I'm so tall. Almost three standard deviations above the mean. And maybe you can feed me something sweet, like I'll never be an average woman. But why should I keep myself from blending into the sea of beautiful arms and toes and hair and lips and thighs, tangled together like a work of art or maybe just frustratingly knotted necklace chains. Not small, but endless - in a perfectly comfortable way.

My youth is slipping through my hands and I'm desperately grasping at the fallen pieces. I waste my life sitting in front of a screen feeling sorry for myself and it doesn't help when time sticks to her guns and never ceases. I put my dreams and future aspirations up on a crooked old shelf; collecting dust until the day I wake up and realize it's too late. Wishing on lonely mall fountains to become a better set of bones. It's an equation and sequence of numbers I can't calculate. Considering the fact that I suck at math. My body is built on a foundation of "some days" and "one days" and it's beginning to crumble; bulldozed by everything I could never do or say. An overwhelming sense of fear and failure boils in my hollow veins. While the voices in the back of my brain continue to persist, saying things like: "you're gonna die without anybody around to love." "You're gonna die without anybody around to remember you by." "You're a miserable loser without a single grip on life. " "You're gonna die all wrinkly and old, choking on your last artificial breaths." "You're gonna be begging for that sweet relief of death."

I am not yet ready to surrender to the depths of Sleep, my mind still awhirl with midnight wind through my hair, curling around my fingers as we approach at 80 MPH in a topless Jeep (we aren't even speeding), my arm rests on the seatback and suddenly I'm all 80's coolgirl redcar bombshell, pulling off her shades, winking at you through montage music blaring through military-strength speakers. We are hurtling towards Summer's End and the brink where the present overflows into memory. This night becomes a history, a legend, a blur of other riotous Friday nights spent screaming at the world. And we are sprawled on a hill at the park staring at the clouds, pretending to see stars, and the automatic sprinklers come on and it's like I am watching the memory being processed and bottled before it has even finished. Because Today always becomes Yesterday, Last Summer, When I Was Young. I cannot sleep while I am still so full of youth. I cannot sleep while I approach the ever-looming waterfall that drags Summer into The Past. I am not yet ready to surrender to the depths of What Once Was.

When I was ten-years-old, I told everyone I wanted to be a priest. I didn't know that Protestants were celibate, because the only thing I ever read was the stash of Playboys in my dad's attic, and the only thing I ever did on Sunday was watching Law & Order reruns. When I was eleven-years-old, I told everyone I wanted to be a cop, because they were always divorced on TV, because their wives always died in the books, because stories didn't need characters to be kissing people to punch narcos and pimps. When I was twelve-years-old, I told everyone I wanted to be a detective, because the only man Sherlock Holmes ever loved was John Watson, the only woman Sherlock Holmes ever wanted was Irene Adler, and the only kiss he's ever had was with the tobacco in the toe end of his Persian slippers. When I was thirteen-years-old, I told everyone I wanted to be alone, because mom and dad gave me "the talk" and told me that "everybody wants to have sex." When I was fourteen-years-old, I told everyone I was temporary, because when my friend came out to me as gay I told him I didn't like being naked in a dark room with somebody I knew, and he said, "No, you're just going through a phase." When I was fifteen-years-old, I told everyone I was a freak, because that was what Margo called me when she took off her shirt in her house while we were watching the Shining. When I was sixteen-years-old, I told everyone I was nobody, because sex is love and the only people who don't want sex are damaged and doomed to never be happy. And I didn't want it. I truly didn't.

Be it smooth and silky, or baked and milky. It might have spice, or little grains of rice. Maybe a caramel top, or things that pop. Smiles and laughs all around, what a pleasant sound. Oh what a delightful treat, for everyone likes something sweet to eat.

They are not real, how can you love them? That´s what they ask me. They are not real, how can you invest so much time watching their lives pass by while your own life passes by and all you do is siiting here in front of your laptop watching people that are not real. They don´t understand how much it can help to watch these fictional characters going through everything that I´m going through, getting better, standing up for themselves and standing up for me in a way cause tv shows can change the way society thinks and in doing so they create a better reality. Reality created by fictional characters. They are not real, but they help as much as real people can, they help more than some real people ever will. It sounds strange to you, I know. You don´t understand it, but you also don´t understand me, my life, my reality. Maybe, just maybe, it would also help you to watch these characters you always brush aside with some insulting words or a pityful smile.

Is it possible to see the pain? The sorrow? Depression, that azure flame, knows nothing of sight. And yet it pleads, pleads to all the world, for even half-hearted acknowledgement. It crackles, it blazes, it screams. The salty rains do their best to wash it out, but it still sparks, still burns. Surely you can see it burning? Surely you can feel the sparks? Or do you, like the rest of humanity, look only with your eyes?

we rise with dawn's breath on our eyelids, as we open our eyes it leaps off in the shape of an exhale against chilled window panes. It trembles with the ephemeral beauty of a transient being. we return with twilight's cape draped around our shoulders, silvers of yesterday remains hidden amidst today's colours. The edges are slightly frayed, they flap in the wind, without a beginning, without an end. it awaits, with their heels poised to take flight. awaiting for us, to take flight with them

Eyes doing pushups early in the morning while she paints SMPTE color bars onto the tv. Paint drips from the top of the screen to the bottom until it hits the bottom. The colors touch at the borders, a meet and greet of "Hi" and "Nice to meet you!". The colors shake hands in the empty cracks. Crickets chirp at the full moon outside the apartment window. In a round, they sing tunes with the sticky summer air. Out in the parking lot below they stand in the shadows of the streetlights. Chips of paint fall off of the screen like a snake shedding its skin. The past is stored in stacked cardboard boxes that sit against the wall behind the tv. On the floor she falls asleep with the paintbrush loose in her hand. In the morning, the only thing left is the tv sitting in the middle of the floor. Static blares at full volume on a channel that isn't on air. She got quite good at creating the static silence for the person that will own this apartment after her. And she hopes that the buzzing of the broken television channel with broken bug antennas will be their sleeping sound.

I started my bike ride with him at the back. The day was cute. It started drizzling over. And the sky is turning black at the corner. That was the most wonderful day of my life. But i never thought that would turn inward out. It turned to be the beginning of the end of our love. I made the mistake. I never know what should i do. But i thought i always did. Hell with my predictions! I can never be the winner of hearts. For i'm always the ruiner of them. Oh, 'who will cry, when i die?'. Even i can't it seems.