Young Writers Society

rainy afternoons

Summertime, all throughout the city,
there was a warm breeze,
the smell of coffee and flowers
and the possibilities of a new day.
this guitar has been
both a weight around my back
and the thing that will set me free.

It was a day like any other,
until I met you. You brought the sun,
or you were keeping it here.
Minnesota is so far away.

Now that you're gone it's pouring rain,
and the city is quiet, everyone inside their shells.
There's not an end in sight,
unless you came back
and the sun could shine again
and we'd have summertime,
all throughout the city.

early morning blues

When my sister and I were children
my father always used to make us wake up early
in the summer-- he'd buy us bagels and
we'd sit outside. He'd tell us that
if we wake up early, we'd get a head start to the day.
back home, my sister would retreat to her room
to play with Barbies and read Seventeen
and my father and I would listen to cassette tapes
of The Beatles and Nirvana. It's mornings like these
that I hold onto those memories.

My thoughts are less coherent than
Paul McCartney singing Let it Be-- but there's so much
I'd want to ask my father if he was here.
I don't know how to be a person in the world,
how to to be a brother or a son.
I don't know how I could ever love you
in the way you need. and he was the only one
that could have taught me.

For now, I'll just drink in the morning rays
and the fraught possibilities of today.

coffee is my breakfast

we got our power turned off this morning
for the third time in the past year.
no more shifts for me or mom
and no gigs on the horizon
since I used the Blue Crane money to pay the rent.
Mom still won't let my sister work
because, she says, you have to be a kid.
but I don't know how we live our lives
when we we wonder where our next meal
will come from, when i drink coffee for breakfast
because we can't shopping until next week.
sometimes I walk through Central Park,
look at all the high-rises
and imagine what it would be like
to not have to worry about
such basic things.

3am

I was awake at 3am this morning
thinking about all of mistakes
and how I failed to love her
in the way that she deserved.
now she lingers over me like a spectre
one that tells me I can never love again,
her judgements playing on an endless loop.

I want desperately to love you
and not feel the heartsick pain
all over again. she tells me
that you've forgotten all about me
are living your life,
and have forgotten about the boy
you met in New York.

I was awake at 3am,
and realized that it as cold,
because I'd left the window open.
it's supposed to thunderstorm again
today and tomorrow and the next day--
they say the rain represents renewal
and maybe we could fall in love too.

the earth could be ours

Lately, I've been thinking
every time I wake up in the morning
about how all I want to do
is share my life with you.
We could be so happy
if we spent all of our days together
and there is so much you and I could do
that the earth could be ours.

you and me,
together forever,
and somehow we've bridged this gap
between time and space.
I tried to forget about you at first
but you are present in my every waking thought.

so, beautiful, let's try this thing,
won't we? life is short and it is often meaningless
but while we're here,
the earth could be ours.

two ships (first draft)

The night was cold
as the ship cut through the black of night.
It was so dark that I couldn't see
where the ocean ended and the sky began.
I was just a passenger who wondered
if we would ever find land.

There was a glow in the distance
that caught my eye and I went to the edge
to get a better look.
It was a ship like ours,
cutting through the night
and of course I wondered who they were
and where they came from.

I saw her standing on the deck --
just like me. a beautiful girl,
alone in the world just like me.
as the ships moved closer and closer
her image became clearer.
even more beautiful up close.
then, in a moment
our ships passed.

as they did,
we waved.
then the girl was gone,
off to live her life
and me to live mine,
but i hope that we can be more
than ships passing in the night.

This is complete crap. I can't show this to Marcy. Come back to and rewrite. -C

a lump in my throat

it's only been a week,
and then a week will become two
and then it will be a month
and the months will turn to years
until you are nothing but a distant memory.
time always passing, us getting older all the time
and the present even more fleeting.

I thought I'd lost the napkin with your number
but it was in my pocket the whole time.
I put it on my desk and every day
I stare at it in the face, but
whenever I think of calling
my body turns to jello and
a lump forms in my throat
like a rock, preventing me from actually
picking up the phone.

you've probably moved on already
and are dating some other boy
why could you care about some nobody guy
you met in New York?

maybe I'll write a great song
and that will be
why you came into my life.

alarm clock

it calls first thing in the morning
buzzing the most unpleasant sound imaginable
right into your ears. it reminds you that it's time
to start another day where you're beholden to your place
as a cog in a capitalist machine.
there is never any time, not since we were children,
no time for lazy afternoons
where we created stories
in which my He-Man played knight in shining armor
to your Barbie's princess in the tower.
it's days like that I miss most.
you're not innocent anymore,
you know the way the world works.
I just want things to be
different for you.

the city

In the hustle of the city
there's always noise
always somewhere to be
always an expectation
I'm not going to meet,
always going, going, going.

I'm trying to be what they want,
what they've always expected,
in the hustle of the city,
I want a place where I can go,
I want a moment to breathe.

lavender

I walked into the store and smelled
the strong scent of lavender
on a scented candle. I thought about
buying it for my mother for her birthday
but realized that I didn't have the money.
I know how much she loves the smell of lavender
and how it calms her soul.

once, about a year ago,
she had a lavender scented candle
and as it burned I remember thinking
how relaxing the scent was, how a
smell can trick you into thinking
that everything's going to be okay.

I left the store without the candle,
thinking to myself that one day,
I'd never be without money again.

you always told me

you always told me that nothing's impossible,
you always told me to be strong,
you always told me to be myself,
and that was all I'd ever need
to live my life to the fullest.
I've followed your advice
and now I am so lost
in a Matrix, a mindless drone
in the simulation of my life.
you always told me
that nothing lasts forever,
nothing bad, nothing good,
it's always changing
and I wonder
when things are going to
turn around again
because I'd like some good for a change.

zombie

barely awake, barely alive,
barely a person in the world.
I am a zombie, droning on,
one foot in front of the other,
without much regard
for anything that makes life
worth living.

I tried to forget about you,
forget about the brief moments we shared,
because even if you're still thinking about me too,
what does it matter?
we are living separate lives,
but all I know is that,
the time I spent with you,
is one of the first times
I've felt alive
in a long long time.