Young Writers Society

she watches the screen
tapping her foot, waiting
for words that are said by
typing on a blood stained keyboard
words that never come when she wants them too.
and she watches the messages she'll never send
pile up in that word document,
waiting for her twenty seconds of courage
when she can say everything she's imagined in her head.

he always told her, tracing her body's outline with a red pen
that she thought too much, that just doing it would be much easier
than hesitating and biting her lip to keep herself from opening up her soul
too much.
he always said he'd sew her heart back onto her sleeve if it fell off
but she doesn't believe that's possible, i mean, when one's heart falls
doesn't that mean it'll shatter when it hits the floor?

she never says the things she has in her head, so they bunch up
and create huge piles of words that spill out when she's not thinking
and she throws paragraphs of admittance that she is less perfect than she intends
and he pets her hair and colors in her outline so she can see that she does have a heart.

even if tomorrow he opened up his chest to carve her name on his chest,
she wouldn't believe it for a second--just check to make sure her heart was still there
beating, the cardboard wet and soggy from all the nights she cried, because
she thinks she's not brave enough for him.

she handed him books and poetry she wrote in still-aired rooms
and he read them with absurd ease, and she was a little disappointed that he
didn't see the meaning in them, didn't see what she was trying to say without words.
so she took them back and put them on her sleeve, right beside her heart
to protect anyone who tried to come near from knowing what she thought of them.

he left her with a silver slip of a promise, that he'd come back
and for a long time she sat staring at the screen and wondered
if she was right not to let her heart fall, if she was right to catch it and safety pin it back.
she decided she'd spill all her words if he came back
let the heart bleed out onto the covers of the bed,
but she never had too, because he never did.

she grabbed the nearest exit, flew off into the sun and let it burn her
let herself wither into a pile of words, tied tightly together with heartstrings
she wouldn't cut.

she looks at the brown paper, stares at the outline he drew
red ball point pen making wide lines where there used to be skin.
and she sees he colored in her eyes and hair, but nothing else,
just a cut out of what he wanted her to be, and what she never was.
she wonders now if he liked her, or if he liked the idea of her
and that hurts more than any letters he will never send.