Young Writers Society

AUGUST
When everything begins to spiral

it is dawn and you are afraid the sun will burn your city down. these days, your interventions are cyclic: you roam the house unperturbed, but when the postman raps at your window i can see it in your face, in your eyes, in the twitch of your lips as your gaze turns wild and gaping. there's a hole where the gossips' column should've been in the morning paper and i tell you it's not my fault your dog is so fond of bitingbacks and bitingtext and biting into everything but the fear that overwhelms you.

because it's true: you are frightened, you are frightened, you are so so so afraid. and it is not the theatrical overcast of the clouds to blame, or the looming shadows of people you never knew that fall across your face, because the city is quiet and placid, the sky's dreamy eyes like cold, swirling milk.

who could ever blame the sky for anything? i ask you.

(you get a bucket, a mop and wipe the windows down with tar. just in case, you say. just in case. just in case.)

there's a hole where the gossips’ column should've been.

SEPTEMBER
When life reopens its floodgates,
and I escape the house.

last night, there was a charade downtown, in that palace made from boxes and soda cans; there was shingle where my toes were supposed to be and gasoline inside my lungs and the fire-escapes were all clogged with matchsticks. i called the place my townhome, but now it is a mausoleum for things that burn in quiet redemption. (do you remember, the first time we went there? i swore i saw sparks, but they weren't in the wiring. they were between you and me.)

and last night there was a charade and i was the circus and--you don't know this, you've never known, you'll never know--the ringmaster knew my name. when they spoke it was with your voice and i could've sworn it was you, except you were wrapped in stardust quilts and surrounded by comet walls, and i knew that if i passed by your house i'd see it dripping in black paint. you’ve never possessed the predilection to dress yourself up for funerals, but i’ve heard people talking, and they say things about you that strangle my live wire heart.

truth be told, i wanted you to follow me there last night. i wanted to hold your hand and trace the streets with charcoal like we did when we were younger. you always did have a penchant for stirring trapezes with your lips; you’d skydive from Mars without a net if i told you i’d catch you before you fell.

but you parachuted down to earth a long time ago, and left me in an airlock with no room to breathe. i'd skydive from Mars for you, without a net, though you'll never be there to catch me when i fall.

but then again, you always have been selfish to begin with.

OCTOBER
When leaves churn on the river of the pavement,
paper boats riding undercurrents of life and decay,
and I am one of them.
(I have stopped reading the papers,
because all they talk about these days
is you.)

dawn sifts into the sky every morning and it finds me sitting on a stile staring at a mausoleum, wondering if filling it with heartache means it's still empty. there are no more trapezes; i tear the sinewy threads of my heart to stitch trap-nets with and leave them by your door.

but days go by, and it doesn't open.

NOVEMBER

Where I am Schrödinger’s cat;
life is at once full and empty.

slowly, i am beginning to breathe again.

for a long time, i have been the place where shadows meet people's feet, the place where things part and bind together. i am shades of grey. i am shades of miscellenia and microtropic wonderlands filled with mystery. you say you have lived in my shadow for too long, but the truth is that all my life i've been trying to outline yours in doves' wings. i soak your shadow in ink and wring it out until it looks like feathery black gold. it gets dark quickly, maybe because it's winter, i think, or maybe because i feel your shadow falling over me all the time. there is nothing at the end of the road when i open my eyes, though, and i have begun to think you have always been the dark: flighty, sly, and with no express purpose in mind but that of drowning me.

[i a m s t i l l d r o w n i n g.]

DECEMBER

The leaves in my eyes are still,
and I send you a letter:
I thought you might like to know,
I have found myself another place,
after your heart.

i’m cutting coats out of newspaper prints but always without lapels; there's a hole in the gossips’ column and i have begun to fear that some day its absence may cut into me.

i saw you walking down the street yesterday. i saw the messages you left on my door. i saw the hate you'd packed and parcelled and fed yourself until you were dying without it.

‘slit my throat like you mean it,’ you tap on your window in morse, eyes afraid. your lips frame memories i can't hear, memories i’ll forget unless you don't let me, unless it stops (please stop). it gets dark quickly and you ask me to stuff your failure into a glass bottle. ‘drop it into the ocean so some day it'll exchange stories with shipwrecks.’

these days my interventions are cyclic. i roam the streets unperturbed, wondering if the clouds will ever cease to spell out your name.

JANUARY
They will never cease to spell out your name.

it is dawn and i am afraid the sun will burn your city down.

and you dread the moment you will raise your hands to your lips, palms cupped, swallowing sundrops and dustlight. you flutter your eyelids shut, drawing the blinds down, carving moths to your veins so they never learn how to fly. our demons are plugging up our ears, asking for sinkholes--but please let them drown, please wrap the fear into a newspaper and send it reeling down the drain. i know it's hard. i know you say the only reason i'm breaking is because i'm deluded and you're insane, but the truth is that you're afraid. the windows are clamped down with fists, the floor is flypaper and your eyes are a cesspit for things left unsaid. unsaid, you're afraid. of the dark, of the light, of the fire in your bones that turns your cells to ash--you roll it around your tongue, swallow it, choke on the particles because they taste of death they taste of harsh words and cruel assumptions and i know--i know--i know just how--

you are afraid.

because you know how much you mean to me.

[there is a hole
where the gossips’ column should have been,
and every morning, for you, i will fill it up with sun.]

--

A/N: This is the edited version of an older poem of mine, sunchurning vacillations, which I wrote last year. It's a clumsy edit, but I wasn't getting anywhere with it, so some criticism would be mucho appreciated!