Young Writers Society

Maybe One Day We’ll Meet

We orbit each other,
like Pluto and Charon,
and I wish I could reach out
and finally grasp you.

Our lives are built of distance,
and we built castles on a gap we could never close

Somedays, I think we're one and the same,
but sometimes, you're just the stranger I call Mother.
I think that makes us even more similar.

In the way that mirror images are backward,
I was given your entire life,
but took all the paths opposite yours.

Why do we never understand each other, Mom?
Why are we always just one room away from each other,
one phone call away,
one half an hour away,
but neither of us can ever cross the threshold?

We call each other when we need something,
and your greetings are usually full of upset,
and my goodbyes are full of hurt,
and we never say the words out loud,
but I swear we can hear them.

If we're so good at speaking in code,
why do we never speak plainly?
Wouldn't it be easier if our "I love you's"
weren't full of secret "but's?"
But you're frustrating me
But you never see me anymore
But you have failed everything you set out to be
But I'm struggling, and you've never noticed

Maybe we're cursed because I'm your daughter,
and I can only operate with the code you gave me.
We are two ends of a feedback loop,
exchanging hurt and blame like White Elephant gifts

And I can't find it in myself to blame you
because you've always taught me to be guilty,
and your mother always taught you to be defensive,
so we get stuck in another impasse.

I am fifty percent of your blame,
and together, we are one hundred and fifty percent of the problem.
I want to say the words, "I forgive you,"
and I want you to tell me to stop feeling sorry,
but I can't reach out over the gap
because I'm terrified of the moment we won't touch.

— — —

Six Inches of Water

Before you say you're hurting, see if anyone else is first.

Take a number, stand behind the dotted line, count the heads of everyone more important you. Realize that in this world, your problems are pebbles in the face of traumatic boulders. Pick a category, scroll to the top, and see that no matter which way you look at it, you are just one person in a long list of centuries of pain. So at the end of the day, why should anyone care about you?

Why would anyone care about me?

Humans are less unique than snowflakes. There is someone out there who has gone through everything I have. And they have gone through it more times. They one through it worse. They came out with less. And I have the audacity to sit here and act like I know what hardship is.

But I do, don't I?

Drown in six inches of water. Drown in six feet. Will the coroner tell the difference between drowned and drowned? I am drowning. it could be just from a drizzle for all I know, but I can't breathe. I haven't breathed in a long time. I've been too busy diving in to save the people in the deep end. But I never knew how to swim.

Put your oxygen mask on before helping others, but life isn't a place crash. I can't afford to wait until my next emergency to take up space. Because I will have nothing left to help others with. I am a well, but I have reached the bottom. I'm trying to squeeze water out of mud.

I am not important. But I'm tired. I'm human. I'm hurt. I'm drowning. Isn't that enough for someone to help me pull my head out of the water dish? I don't know if I can anymore.

I took my number and nobody listened. There are too many problems in the world to wait your turn to be noticed. But in the dark, when the people in line have gone home, can't I be selfish enough to ask for my turn?

— — —

Desert Time

The soil's different in a small town. It's like the weeds take longer to grow until El Niño. Then your dirt yard is all foxtails, clover, and dandeloins.

I grew up in a desert. My friends and I joked about hopping the school fence to explore the soft sand beyond it. Hikes in the summer always meant staying away from the brush because that's where rattlesnakes slumbered. Rain always smelt like creosote bushes and dusty asphalt.

Of course, everyone wanted to leave, but people kep filing back like the rundown motels and mom-and-pop Mexican restaruants were a siren's call. My high school prinicpal left, only to come back. My best friends' parents left only to come back. My mom left only to come back.

I've left, and I hope to find myself states away.

But on windy days, when I can hear the sand hit my window, I think back to how the dust would make my legs sting during the harsh summer winds. And then I think about my school, and the cockroach infestation and the black widow in the ASB storage named Natalia. I learnt to let the water run for a while after summer break because the pipes were all rusted. The rust taste never really went away.

We weren't a close small town. The adults were Christian, traditional, steadfast. The youth was stubborn, rebellious, and counting down the days to leave. I wonder how many of them have managed to stay away. I wonder how many are scared to return.

I stradle the line between the future and my hometown, and I stop to listen to the wind. I am a deset child. There's so much sand on my scalp, my mom will have to help me wash my hair. Rocks are stuck in the scraps on my knees. Yellow clover flowers are the closest thing I have to a garden.

I am closing the door on my town that never moves and moving for it.

— — —

All the Lies We Tell Ourselves 

There's no such thing as love,
only lonely people making desperate promises
to appease some feral hungers
that we pretend are normal
and moral.

There's no such thing as god,
only terror of an unkind universe,
and flailing to make it manageable.
We make someone untouchable,
so we don't have to hold them accountable.

There's no such thing as you,
only the picture you painfully carved
into the small of my chest.
I knew you only from your strokes,
but those were never real.

There's no such thing as us,
only me kneeling at your feet,
calling you the lies of love and god.
You got everything you wanted from me,
and made me nothing in return.

— — —

Name Me Icarus (Shoot Me Down Before the Sun Does)

some things are never meant to take off
and I was always one of them
but against nature and god
i sprouted wings from my back
and kissed the clouds anyway

i was a wretched thing
with iridescent feathers
that sparkled every shade of starlight
and a drunken grin
that glowed brighter than the sun

life feels like a cage on the ground
but in the sky i was free
lawless and ungovernable
a creator of my own unmaking
trying to capture the love of the sun

grab a butterfly net and try to catch me
tie a kite string around my ankles
whatever you do strip me of my wings
i was never meant to learn how to soar
i was never meant to be happy