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YWP Newsletter- 7.30.18

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THE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
This is the last newsletter for July... I hope you enjoyed reading them as much as I enjoyed making them! Next month- for August we'll have a new primary editor for some variation and new weekly favorites. Have a great August and end of summer!

If you already know what the YWP Weekly Newsletter is feel free to skip the next paragraph.

This newsletter highlights writing, audio, images and any happenings in the YWP Community. We are a small band of YWP Community Leaders who also help create Challenges, select Daily Reads, Recommended, and work for Publication. As the editors of the newsletter, our role is to bring you authors extra audience and shine and to bring you readers some special pieces of work. Please pass along this newsletter or the links to the stories to bring the authors even more viewers. Enjoy!

This week we feature the writing and images of Nightheart, Aidster21, angelaweasley, Hazel.C., Drift, and Maddi Clair.

View all previous newsletters here.

Cancer
by Nightheart

“ your aunt has cancer.”

No.

takeafastbreathinclose
youreyes,trynottoletitall
comepouringout.

how
could
this
happen?

thisdoesnthappen,nottous
maybetootherpeoplebut
nottouspleasegodwhere
areyou?

”how bad is it?”

please.

icantlethergo,
howcananyoneletanyone
go,it’sunthinkablethata
fewcellsgrowinginsidehermight
takeheraway.

only
in
the
middle
stages.

thetearscomerippingout
andicantcontrolthemanymore,
thereisnostoptothesadness
anditfeelslikeaholeis
beingtorninsideofme,
fabricteraingapartwithaharshpull.

”are you ok?”

howcouldanyonebeokay,
iamnotokaybutilookaroundand

i’ve
got
to
be
strong.

”yes”

(photo credit, above: Aidster21)

I Chose Money Over My Father and I Don't Regret It
by angelaweasley

because of what I bought.

love is a currancy i hesitate to spend.

i have $483 dollars of non-refundable
deposits of memories.
deflation is inevitable.

my love was only worth
5 calls
and
an email.

they taught me macro-econmics in school
but i think he only learned
micro.

he was expensive.

love was the only payment i knew before
he started asking for another.

dirty money

that's what he threw at me.
resentment,
guilt,
anger,

anything to keep me buying.

my debit cards have a limit
and i think he found mine.

i chose money over my father and i don't regret it
because i spent it on my
mother
my
sister
my
friend
my
self.

i chose money over my father

and i am

all the richer now.

(photo credit, left: Hazel.C.)

Anything But a Homebody
by Drift

I.
Transition comes to me.
It seeks me out
and urges me forward.
Buildings blur and warp
as I wander
from street to street.
My feet wear down soles
without hesitation.

II.
It started with a gate.
From a mother’s arms
to the gates of an orphanage
to a standard issue bed
to a foster home.
I am exchanged from embrace to embrace
and loaded onto a plane.

III.
I lingered,
feet planted in loose soil
and reached for the sun
with open palms
and slender fingers.
It was bright and warm,
perfect and comfortable.

IV.
I changed schools.
Willingly of course.
Change had latched on like a leech,
buried in my bones.
I couldn’t stay still even if I wanted to.

V.
I am tearing my hair out,
it comes in clumps
and washes down the drain.
I want to leave,
to stretch out
and feel new air.

VI.
I am gone,
a distant memory.
Maybe in another life
I’ll see that smile.

(photo credit, right: Maddi Clair)

Tiny Writes
If I’m “only 13”
Maybe the world
Should start
Acting like it.
--Nightheart

YWP Newsletter- 7.16.18

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THE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
Welcome to another weekly newsletter. Mid-July is always a lot of fun, ice cream, swimming, outside play, reading, writing (Post it all on YWP!) this week we have some new amazing photos and a lot of incredible writing, keep it up!

If you already know what the newsletter is, feel free to skip the next paragraph.

This newsletter highlights writing, audio, images and any happenings in the YWP Community. We are a small band of YWP Community Leaders who also help create Challenges, select Daily Reads, Recommended, and work for Publication. As the editors of the newsletter, our role is to bring you authors extra audience and shine and to bring you readers some special pieces of work. Please pass along this newsletter or the links to the stories to bring the authors even more viewers. Enjoy!

This week we feature the writing and images of a.harkness02, JuliaR, maxwellz, lila woodard, angelaweasley, and hills1.

YWP HAPPENINGS

Summer of Stories is happening! Read more here.

Join in on the short story workshop here!

Did you miss any of the previous newsletters? Click here.

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How to Be Empty
by JuliaR

The branches project a shadow
onto my paper thin skin.

I can see the sun sipping the clouds
sweet water as they float by.

Everything is soft around me
and even my eyes are quiet
against the wind.

Birds fly ahead
whispering secrets
this is what peacefulness
feels like.

The sensation of being fully
willingly
taken.

(photo credit, above: a.harkness02)

Pretty Girls with Pretty Lies
by lila woodard

Her face
illuminates
mine
Stunning in
her sin and
disease
pulchritudinous even to a
king
an ineffable
deity
Breathing
my light blue
perfume in
ounce by ounce
and breathing
out pretty
lies
they warned
me about the
ones like
her,
pretty girls
with pretty
lies.

(photo credit, left: maxwellz)

They/Them: The Way They Speak
by hills1

they speak in poetry.
their first word was "revolution";
can you believe it?
each sentence they speak—
passionate sonnets,
each word has to be soaked
in intellectual meaning
(they're also very smart too).
they also speak in couplets
two line of a verse that rhyme;
sarcasm, maybe.
haikus are a whole other language,
five
seven
five
every time they open their mouth
they make unintentionally beautiful patterns.
each ballad,
cinquain,
and epitaph they utter,
could make a book,
a novel
of poetry.

(photo credit, right: angelaweasley )

Tiny Writes
You will always be you;
Forever.
And, Love...
That’s a long time to hate yourself.
--lila woodard

YWP Newsletter - 7.2.18

THE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
Welcome to the first July newsletter! It's very hot and I hope you all are staying cool and getting lots of swim time! This month a new community leader is editing the newsletters -- and I'm very excited to take my turn at creating them for you all. As a side note-- thank you to June's primary editor for the many great newsletters that were created! I looked foward to reading them each week and the introduction paragraphs were very amusing.

To community leaders: please, if you find work and pictures that you love tag it as "curated" it helps a lot with creating the newsletter and gives others a chance at getting published in it!

To everyone: selecting photos for the week is a lot of fun and hard when there aren't many... if you have photos you love, submit them! It's amazing to see the beautiful images on here and submitting them gives you a chance at be published in the newsletter too.

Anyway, I'm super excited to be newslettering this month! Thanks for reading them.

If you already know what the newsletter is, feel free to skip the next paragraph.

Welcome to the YWP Weekly Newsletter! This newsletter highlights writing, audio and images and any happenings in the YWP Community. We are a small band of YWP Community Leaders who also help create Challenges, select Daily Reads, Recommended, and work for Publication. As the editors of the newsletter, our role is to bring you authors extra audience and shine and to bring you readers some special pieces of work. Please pass along this newsletter or the links to the stories to bring the authors even more viewers. Enjoy!

This week we feature the writing of adalet, jbird18, pbellomo2021, a.harkness02, Drift, Flowerdragon, AboutToSnap, sophie.d, and Icestorm

YWP HAPPENINGS
Summer of Stories has begun! Read more here.

Castleton University is launching an academy for high school seniors! Read more here.

Read GG's "Lights Out" post about his break from YWP's executive director after 12 years here! We'll miss you GG!

Did you miss any of the previous newsletters? Click here.

Coffee with Honey
by adalet

she was surprised to find that
sometimes home can look like
a mother with eyes like
the mediterranean and a smile
soaked in honey

a feeling found in twisted
hair, as soft as moss and bitter
as black coffee, written
in tongues foreign yet familiar, in
dust that tickles your nose and in
laughter that shakes you to the core

sometimes home is a fleeting sense
of recognition, of familiarity
found in the corners of a smile or
the edges of softening eye
contact- that moment of "our
souls have known each other since
the beginning of time and
i would recognize you
anywhere," perhaps you
truly see me

(photo credit, above: jbird18)

Words
by pbellomo2021

You saw her,
Sitting there.
You didn't say a thing.
Teary eyed,
Dust filled lungs.
Her silent cry for help.
"Don't look back,"
Said your mind.
But you hoped someone would.

Words,
How little they seem until it's too late.

(photo credit, left: a.harkness02)

Tough Pill to Swallow
by Drift

I.
I remember swallowing a lump in my throat
you fiddling with your hands in the chair next to me.
We were nervous energy, unrefined
and just waiting to crash and burn.
Caffeine capillaries
and bloodshot eyes,
we knew our late night and early morning
with fingertips tapping at keyboards numbly.
That lump melted away as the sun shone down
from behind us, warm and inviting.
I knew it was fine.

II.
I remember clearing my throat in your car.
I swallowed hard to forget.
You laughed,
spindly fingers turning the knob on the car radio
to full blast
as you whipped down the straight away,
windows down,
and me yelling.
You screamed along,
lyrics visceral and raw.
I could feel your form
breathe in the sunbeams
and you lit up
with the light and fire
of a thousand stars in broad daylight.

III.
I loved you.

IV.
I remember driving in the rain,
my eyelids heavy.
Iced tea bellies
and thrifted wares,
our wallets were lighter
but our memories bigger.
I had my hand in yours
and it was warm and comforting.
I was shivering and you told me
to grab your jacket from the back
and I curled into that worn denim
and cherished it.
We got home too fast.

V.
I loved you.

VI.
It’s hard to swallow
and my head is reeling.
It’s fuzzy and fleeting,
drifting from my field of vision
like your dainty dandelion wishes.
Fleeting.
That’s how I’d describe it.
It was raining again as we drove.
I remember us arguing.

VII.
The end is hard to swallow.
I loved you.
But we gave up.

(photo credit, right: a.harkness02)