Young Writers Society

1
I’ve lost you, my friend,
to our age.
I guess I can’t compete with athletics,
and poetry has never been as enticing
as the things that I imagine
my peers do on weekends.

I’ve lost you, my friend,
somewhere on those forest tracks
that stink of XC flats and beer…
where the race-path fingers of Destiny radiate
from hempen college applications
and sign-up forms still soggy
with the sports team weight
of >.002% blood.

2
I am the nine-nine-point-nine-nine-eight percent,
a 99% hollow student
occupying the dark pews
of some lecture hall rife with–
I don’t quite know yet,
but it smells like printer paper
and meaningless poems,
unused condoms
and mindless salary;
unlike your parties,
I'm dizzy from unspent synthetics
and academic sobriety.

it is where I am now,
where I might always be:
some isolated work room
with one executive window
overlooking those inebriate woodlands,
where I stand and will stand
helplessly omniscient
above the dirt pathways that God, ironic,
has wrought for you.

3
I see you, my friend,
and your friends too,
all racing down those last legs
towards finish line flags,
or home base skirts
that wave thin and auspicious
with triumph.

I see you, my friend,
drunk with wind
and breathing heavy
against competing feet,
on triple-C pavement
or triple-X sheets.

4
in my abstinence, intelligence,
I am isolated.
I have lost you all,
I have cast you all out
in drunken forest and smoking metaphor
for myself, my dry pursuits–

I hope now, weakly,
that some judgement or detour
will lead you to my doorstep,
where with absinthe or beer
we can walk down roads woven
by those anonymous hands of Fate…
maybe more ironically
than if they kept me here,
in my windowed cranium,
forever.

I loved your poem, beautiful flow and imagery. It was very flowery and has earned a like from me, which is rather uncommon! Unfortunately, many people are able to relate to the message behind this poem, which is something that needs to change.

Arryn wrote:I hope now, weakly,
that some judgement or detour
will lead you to my doorstep,
where with absinthe or beer
we can walk down roads woven
by those anonymous hands of Fate…
maybe more ironically
than if they kept me here,
in my windowed cranium,
forever.

My favorite stanza and might I say an excellent way to pull it all to a close. Keep writing, and good luck to u and ur friend

where I stand and will stand
helplessly omniscient
above the dirt pathways that God, ironic,
has wrought for you.

in my abstinence, intelligence,
I am isolated.
I have lost you all,
I have cast you all out
in drunken forest and smoking metaphor
for myself, my dry pursuits–

I really liked these lines. Especially the "where I stand and will stand" because I just like these kind of lines...

This poem is obviously quite meaningful to you and you can read that in the way it's written.
My critic would have to be that the way the lines are split often sounds a little awkward and cut-off.

with your athletics, and poetry
has never been as enticing
as running, or the things that I imagine
my peers do on weekends.

These lines in particular seem odd. Usually in poetry, the break is at the end of the line and this makes it more readable and makes it flow more easily. Having the commas in the middle of the line may be your style though, I'm not sure.

Anyway! I really like this poem as it is full of real emotion. Great work!


********************************

Unfortunately I don't really have anything helpful to add to this. I really liked it, though, so I wanted to tell you that - I like how you weave the drinking and drugs into other things that are going on at the same time, like college applications. I also like how you separate the poem into parts - first about him, then about you, then about him, then about you - and I think you do a good job keeping on topic about each part.

The only thing that bugged me about this was this part:

"and meaningless poem,
unused condom"

I'm sure you probably did this on purpose, but it just really bugs me that "poem" and "condom" are not pluralized. For me personally it was really distracting, so that detracted a bit from the poem because they took my focus off the poem. This may just be a personal thing, but you may want to consider changing that. Other than that, I thought this was beautiful.

Hope this helped!

~Blue

Thank you SO much for sharing. That was definitely the best thing I've read in a while.
I loved your use of imagery (imagery?) here:

and meaningless poems,
unused condoms
and mindless salary;
unlike your parties,
I'm dizzy from unspent synthetics
and academic sobriety.

Beautiful. Call me weird as anything, but I like the touch of "unused condoms". Contrast makes me gleeful.

When I first started reading I wasn't sure if the numbered pieces were going to fly for me, but I think I like them. They add division and at the very least visual breaks.

Small criticism:

4
in my abstinence, intelligence,
I am isolated.

"In" should be capitalized, I think.

I have nothing left to add. You said it all.

Thanks.