Young Writers Society

Let's spend some time going into deep space,
the coffee of the cosmos, and in this place,
scattering our judgements like minnows made of comet dust
and we can face each other without gorging on distrust.
White noise, the unsung antidote, we can
chant it quietly now, somewhere nobody has to hear.

that one day, you're going to look back at the sunset and
think over and over oh no, this isn't all that. i'd rather
be holding the boy who broke my heart's hand.
there's a story to tell written somewhere between
the irony of high school biology textbooks and the fact that
your pulse is beating out of your chest, but it's not exactly
where your heart would be. now, listen, human hearts
don’t really care that much about who deserves what.

wear your heart on your sleeve, people say - they're just asking
for apathy. so i ignore the way my pulse flickers in the base of my hand
like a halfhearted morse code; i think it's trying to warn me but
i don't really care that much about what apathy has to say.

There once was an earthworm,
who lived in the compost heap.
And she held very firm
that she could fly and leap.

So she gathered her feathers among her dreams
and reached for the sky with a mighty spring.
It's strange what we hope for,
it's strange what we seek,
sometimes a piece of sky is all that we need.

No sense in hoarding seeds, storing greed
in a treasure chest that decomposes
when buried in the sodden earth. When
the strings in the branches are plucked by wind,
and the song of the earth belongs to the sky
and the song of the sky, to the ground below.

i think about the entirety of the rapture.
i think one day i’m going to die in your basement, what a shame.

at least i would have the spiders for company - i could have
such fun, listening to them spread their webs across unplastered walls.
but you tell me i'd have more fun watching the stairs creak in the dark.

and maybe i will.
for the centre of a staircase
extends into nothing.
if i hang off the varnished banister
and let my grip weaken
the darkness will catch me
like you never did.

I fold warm clothes from the dryer, scent of
lavender laundry detergent drifting through
my sun-shaft afternoon.

Which was, to say, the best
in in a great deal of time;
Roses and jasmine bloomed,
their scent, sublime.

Sage, rosemary twigs, and a bit of thyme,
the bitter herbs let their aroma linger, haunting 'round
as the potion refines, and the medicine cooks down
It seems this autumnal soup might do the trick;
warm broth casting away ghosts and ghouls of winter-quick,
the gardens of summer becoming our comfort feast,
the air warming inside, while outside snow begins to creep.

sometimes i wonder how the leaves can shine so defiantly,
like trees on bonfire, when they know they will soon be
outdated and meaningless memories tossed aside.

the ones i treasure, i keep them nestled
in the divots of my collarbone
wrapped around the arch of my feet
the space under my fingernails
the dimple of my cheeks.

and who would have thought that
the crease of an elbow could be called
beautiful?

a short trip-stumble-fall
then a crash back down to earth.
embarrassed, the hem of her skirt blushes a deep crimson.

She doesn’t know everything yet, but she knows that she will;
roses as red as her skirt have their thorns, and
the bright purple thistles bristle their defense.
She thinks that one day perhaps, she will be a flower.

She dreams about the day she would
enchant with sweet pollen,
a fragrance that would melt hard hearts
and even wake the fallen.

Autumn sighs to Summer, goodbye goodbye goodbye
While the hush sweep of Northern winds creep under door seams
The crinkling of changed leaves make for an eerie epitaph

and there were no bird cries in the forest to act as counterpoint,
so the brother and sister walked trailing bread crumbs behind them,
hoping their ears had not deceived them
and their path home would still be there by evening.

let me explain this better in words you can understand:
some things exist just to exist, and maybe find themselves dying a little
towards the end of their storyline. perspectives limit us,
they'll find themselves awake at 3am in a forest with gasoline
and almost no clue why they're even there.
of course, no one thinks to turn around.