Young Writers Society

my next door neighbor gave me a ceramic container

and carved into the top was a delicate rose. any sane person

would have told a child to keep it safe and never pick it up

but this woman, wise beyond her many years,

told me that the only way to enjoy your life

was to use the things that you weren’t supposed to.

touch the sunlight and collect dust bunnies and hold

the delicate ceramic in your hands. feel the rose as if it’ll disappear tomorrow.

i carried it through my life and though my mother told me to

store expensive jewelry in that box, i collected paper.

insignificant scraps given the bed of a goddess, i laid them in their place like

they deserved it as much as my grandmother’s gold and silver.

i lazily dragged my pencil across the shiny surface,

leaving marks that wouldn’t come out with mere soap and water.

every time i see you i think of that woman.

because everyone told me that loving was a waste of time

and my high ambitions would be in vain if i distracted myself for a moment.

agency i thought i had tied in vines, i laid my romantic poetry to rest

in favor of a life i never could have lived.

but you—you live your life as if you have nothing to lose,

like your mind has been covered in fairy dust.

and i think you left a bit of it in the air the last time we kissed

because when i’m around you

i want to draw on the lampshade and paint my walls—

put stickers on my notebooks though there are better places for them to go.

your touch makes me feel as though

i’m not scared at all to use the things i’m not supposed to.

i’m not scared at all to love you when i have “better things” to do.