Get the Anthology!

YWP has just published an Anthology with great student work. Support them and YWP! To order a copy, send $17.50 (includes postage) to: YWP / 69 Swift St., #300 / S. Burlington, VT 05403 Order form/invoice, CLICK HERE. Questions? 860-0570 --gg
Videos, sound and info on Anthology Release Celebration.

Prompt responses due Friday

14. Procrastination. If you had more time, you’d be able to put it off longer. What do you put off to the last moment? Why? Tell a story about how you just barely got something done in time – or didn’t.
Alternate: Splat! Use that word in a story or a poem.

Click here for more info about submitting to our weekly Newspaper Series.

"No."

Poet_Jessica's picture

The plate of food is there.
Filling the tiny room with it's sickenly warm and pleasent aroma.
She speaks aloud to herself, "No," with such venom that it would poison a person standing next to her.
Luckily she was alone.
She reaches out to the fork lying by her side.
"NO!"
She yanks her hand back and sits on it.
She looks at it, thinking to herself how this plate of food must be coming from her cell in Hell.
How else would it know how to undermine her self-control?
She peels her eyes off it, wondering how good it must be.
She sneaks another glance over at the food, trying to will it to sprout legs and walk away.
She knows how little convincing it would take to make her pick of the fork and eat some.
"NO!"
She can't let it win.
She's worked too hard.
She's tried too much.
One slip-up now and everything she'd been working for would be over.
Done.
One bite would lead to two.
Two bites would lead to three.
Then suddenly she would realize that all the food was gone.
She wouldn't allow it to be so.
"No."

Mentors

To read feedback YWP college mentors' comments on entries to the Newspaper Series, click on names below. To read all entries that have feedback, click here. You must be logged in.
To read about mentors, click here.