YWP NEWSLETTER - 9.17.18
Welcome! I'm happy to say that (like always) there has been a wonderful buffet of poetry for me to fill the newsletter with this week. It's fun to see all the new writing from only one week's time, it never fails to amaze me how many fabulous pieces are posted in just seven days. Keep it up! But, (yes, there's a but) we need MORE PHOTOS AND ART!!! If you have a camera or phone, please take some photographs or upload some artwork to YWP. Not only does it make the editor's job easier, but the whole site is made more beautiful with new visual components. So please, get out that camera!
If you already know what the newsletter is, feel free to skip the next paragraph.
Hello! 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 and 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 work of wondering about rain, Love to write, Abriatis, Fiona Ella, adalet, charvermont, and Anna.
YWP HAPPENINGS
SOUNDCHECK STARTS THIS THURSDAY! Learn more here.
Did you miss any of the previous newsletters? Click here.
wondering about rain
Cheek pressed against the
cool grass I see.
The heat of Southern
California summer coming off
of the sun-bleached pavement
in waves,
waves goodbye
to cool breezes and
the sweet taste of
Persephone's spring.
A slow beetle crawling its
way across the lined
palm of a leaf stops to
wave its legs to and fro.
A silent sermon, to
what?
The sweet tsunami of flavor
from the pineapple that
adorns a fancy drink.
Bliss is the cool that
comes from the fridges
open arms on a wednesday
muggy morning while the
house still sleeps.
3 am and the shadow of the
sun not yet kissing the
horizon,
when you look into the
dark blue and all lost
balloons are, indeed,
lost.
6 am and the slight
clink of a student's
bike chain sets the
cities tone, and
my shirt, still sticking
to my back from
the Southern California
heat.
words required to use: Beetle, California, Fridge, Pineapple, Tsunami, Shirt, Bike, Sermon, Lost balloons, Persephone
(Photo credit: Abriatis)
Love to write
This is a poem
for you.
The kind of poem
that drips,
golden and glowing
from your lips
onto hard concrete at 2AM.
I’m reading you aloud
in the dark company
of night.
and you’re not even here to listen.
This is a love poem
to all the gods
we thought we knew.
To thick fog
at dawn.
To distance between fingers
and the sticky glue
we call hope.
I’m finally talking about
all the things
I forgot to mention
early in the morning, lonely
on a train platform somewhere.
Surely, the exact place
I have never been.
This is a love poem
to you.
It’s about caves,
and winter sunlight.
About all the places you refuse to cry
and the time
the ocean did it for you.
This is a manifesto
to the nook
below your chin.
And the place your
eyelashes meet when you
sleep.
These words are for
the silent parts of you,
your stomach;
the time you stomped all the stars
from their sky
in your socks.
This is a love poem
but not the kind
we pretend to know.
charvermont
Today you texted me.
I missed you.
Did you miss me as much?
You asked, “what happened to us?”
and I smiled, because you made it sound like
we were boyfriend and girlfriend.
I said something like, “I don’t know. I tried.”
I’m still waiting on a reply.
You were my best friend.
Do you remember the time
we got pringles and Twix
and ate and watched movies
and we danced around my room
and talked and talked
and giggled our hearts out
and I felt like I had the bestest friend in the whole world.
We traded our scrunchies:
my pink velvet
for your black matte.
And we met at summer camp!
Of all the places,
summer camp.
We were the perfect best friends there had ever been.
We were invincible.
But I guess things can’t always last forever.
(photo credit: Anna)
i spent my life wishing to be tough,
to be so strong nobody could hurt me
but i grew a thick skin and
now wish for nothing more
than to be soft again
--adalet
PHOTO GALLERY
YWP NEWSLETTER - 9.10.18
The mornings are now chilly enough that I don't hesitate to put on a sweater after waking up. It's useless to say that Fall is here, because the weather can be so unpredictable, but I have seen red maple leaves already fallen, waiting for the rest of their friends to join them. I daresay it'll be long now, as when wind hits my face it's no longer refreshing, but a little chilly. Let's enjoy these days, for they'll be gone far too quickly. And enjoy some wonderful writing and photographs, too! Welcome to the YWP newsletter!
If you already know what the newsletter is, feel free to skip the next paragraph.
Hello! 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 and 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 work of Quell, nean_bean, wondering about rain, Love to write, lily veronica, About to Snap, Rubber Soul, Abrieart, Marina2020, and Anna.
YWP HAPPENINGS
SOUNDCHECK IN SEPTEMBER--Learn more here.
Did you miss any of the previous newsletters? Click here.
The Sweetness We Forget
By Quella
Perhaps death smells like autumn leaves,
maple hands gently fallen,
bodies curled in sweet blood hues
Laid at the feet of their mothers.
What a wonder it is that we try so hard to pretend we will never fall from our trees.
It seems such a tragedy to leave this world bare,
To be swallowed by snow.
We forget it seems,
That there is a sweetness in
The bloom that comes later
And a sweetness too in the falling,
In returning to the earth
In red.
(photo credit: nean_bean)
By wondering about rain
All the flowers in the world
wouldn't have been enough,
not nearly.
Not enough to cover the gentle
valleys of your heart or the
bed of candles lit as prayers
and silent whisperings to something
bigger than you.
All the time in the world won't
erase the ever-present
smell of the kitchen as you,
small but a force of nature,
worked throughout it.
The quiet shuffle at 5 am
as you awoke to a day as I am sure
had been done your whole life.
Wisely crafted from years past
I felt you always saw
right through people.
"Oh Mija I have missed you".
I have missed you too but now
the words are spoken
to an empty chair and the
quiet flickering of candlelight.
(photo credit: Love to write)
By lily veronica
Alone in your room
Your friends left an hour ago
Tomorrow is the first day of school
Summer, you realize, drifted by the way you fall asleep
Slowly, then suddenly
You want to cling to these last few moments even though
Your outfit is planned
Your bag is packed
Your face is washed
You had to fill that hour with something, or the first day of school would have been shit
So you click a nob
Move the needle
Lay on your bed as the music starts
The music you listened to all summer
And as you fall asleep so does
The warmth
The green
The sun
The happiness
"Until next June," you think
"See you soon"
-august 28th, 8:19 pm
(photo credit: About To Snap)
I always ask "are you there?" not because I don't know that you aren't, but because maybe you will see that I'm here and join me.
--Rubber Soul
Photo Gallery
YWP NEWSLETTER - 9.3.18
THE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
Well, school has snuck up on us, once again. It's been a drastic shift from relaxed summer days to bustling hallways and math quizzes, but we always seem to survive it... Best of luck in the new school year, and keep up the fantastic writing!
If you already know what the newsletter is, feel free to skip the next paragraph.
Welcome! 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 and 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 work of lila woodard, Anna P., Nightheart, Rubber Soul, Abriatis, Love to write, lia.chien, and laurenhall.
YWP HAPPENINGS
A YWP writer was named NATIONAL STUDENT POET FOR THE NORTHEAST!
SOUNDCHECK RETURNS IN SEPTEMBER--Learn more here.
Did you miss any of the previous newsletters? Click here.
Kentucky
by lila woodard
she rides on her
dreams,
tracing her heart as
it beats to
the footsteps of her
love
she never falters,
an untouched passion
threatening to burn her
from the inside out—
turn her into a star,
made to supernova into something
no one has seen before
and that is the beauty
in her insanity.
(Photo credit: lia.chien)
By Anna P.
Our candles burn
like a million flickering stars,
awaiting the return of darkness
And we just sit
and wait in the shadows,
as if we can never be heard
As our eyes light up
like sparklers on a summer night,
dancing to the sound of the moon.
(photo credit: Love to write)
By Nightheart
let me tell you about pulsars.
In binary star systems,
there are two stars that
revolve around each other.
Sometimes,
they form pulsars.
this is when one of the stars
starts taking materials
from the other.
It takes and takes
and spins faster
until the two beams of light
came out of either end.
and the other star?
it's gone.
that's what you are to me.
a pulsar.
you stripped away my layers,
and i thought it was only because you wanted
to know the beautiful core.
but as we lived,
in the light of long-dead stars whose
silent screams never echoed,
you ate away whatever was left of me,
and shined brighter yourself.
bursting in bright beams,
the light you had taken from me radiating
so nicely on your skin.
and everybody told you how good you looked,
shining as bright as you were,
radiating twin beams of light.
But here's where we aren't like pulsars.
stars, powerful as they are,
are subject to the laws of the universe,
inanimate objects floating in space.
Once that star disappears,
there is no coming back.
Humans, however,
weave their own rules
out of fabric and
mystic and the things
they do not understand.
and so i built myself back up
slowly,
piece by piece so you would not notice.
and when your fist came
flying toward me,
big blackberry bruises on my skin that
i use to think meant
'i love you',
well,
i didn't turn the other cheek.
and now i stand in front of you,
weaving my story in front of a courtroom,
your skin no longer radiating.
Because that was the thing that you
didn't know,
it is that pulsars,
they go out.
(photo credit: Abriatis)
The Photo Gallery
YWP NEWSLETTER- 8.27.18
THE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
This is the last newsletter of August, meaning school is right around the corner. Ugh. Those you who did their summer homework early instead writing, I applaud you. Congratulations also goes to the writers whose pieces were selected for the Anthology 9, YWP's collection of yearly highlights.
The next paragraph is just reminders about the newsletter and YWP news.
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 adalet, a.harkness02, CateBuley, lia.chien, k.daigle, Love to Write, and Abriatis.
View all previous newsletters here.
by adalet
today the sky is red,
as red as life
red like resilience
rosy and animated,
filling me with hope.
today the sky is orange,
orange like healing,
orange like recovery,
sweet like cinnamon,
with victory on the horizon.
today the sky is yellow
like shining sunlight,
the gift of warmth
from the universe,
a reminder to breathe.
today the sky is green,
like the earth and nature below me,
softly shaking in the breeze
it makes you feel whole
with the intent of grounding you.
today the sky is blue,
and bittersweet peace
dances through the air
despite it all,
we come to terms with the truth.
today the sky is purple,
magical, spiritual,
and although we are apart,
the spirit, the heartbeat,
the connection lives within our souls.
and now the sky is pale,
neutral, unknown
the future is uncertain
but the message filling the air
is that we'll carry on.
(Photo credit, above: a.harkness02)
by CateBuley
It was one of those days.
Those days in late fall where the maple trees
are bursting with crimson and gold.
Where the light filtering through the trees,
seems to dance with the shadows.
Where the brookes all seem to be laughing,
and the birds always singing.
They might have been singing then too,
but he could not hear them over the echos
of his own heartbeat.
And that's when he saw her,
in the golden light her hair shined like honey.
Her green eyes seemed to be ablaze,
her soft lips stretched up into a playful smile.
He could have mapped out the freckles on her face,
as one might the stars.
The world seemed to stop,
even if only for a moment.
He had seen her before of course,
but never like this,
but never this way.
(Photo credit, above: lia.chien)
by k.daigle
With their rapid beating hearts and tiny wings,
they flutter around like stars in my own universe.
Swirling tones of a green and yellow storm they sing
their sweet, silent songs of melodical verse.
“What is it like to be a human being?”
the birds ask with their unvoiced inquiry.
“To have a body like yours must be freeing,
instead of our bones, so fragile and wiry.”
Should I tell them the truth to their question,
or let them live on in their peaceful naiveté?
My lips part to give them the hurtful confession,
although something inside me kept it at bay.
“You wish for a human body like mine,
but blessings don’t come without a price.
While I long to fly above the clouds and the pines,
being earthbound is my yielded sacrifice.”
I continue on with sustained vigor,
"Everyone wishes for what they don’t have,
yet they don’t see the crucial figures.
We are made whole, not in two halves.”
“You were made with wings for you were meant to,
just as I was meant to have the bones in my body.
We are all perfect the way we are----it’s true!
We are who we are supposed to embody.”
The birds cease their cyclone as they ponder
the words that have come from my heart----
not the ones they expected, but the candor,
so from my company they quickly depart.
I watch as they swarm away, an emerald river
flying from me, flying from my truth.
One tiny bird stays behind, he quivers
and I can tell he is only a youth.
Somehow I can hear his soft voice
as he studies me as I do him and tells me,
“They left because they didn’t like your choice,
but I understand the words you told us, I see.”
“My friends wanted to know it was better,
for you to pity us for what we are,
to know what it was like to write a letter,
read a book, kick a ball, drive a car.”
“Your words, they were the right thing to tell them,
because although they don’t get it, I do.
Like a flower grows beautifully from a stem,
so will I continue on your enlightened view.”
My hummingbird companion, so quiet and small,
he understands me, deep down and so thoroughly,
that he will convey it everyone and to all,
and with that he takes off hurriedly.
After this encounter, I realize something;
it doesn’t matter if they all accept you,
but if one does, it means everything.
Hopefully one day you’ll know that, too.
With warmth in my heart and smile on my face,
I will remember that hummingbird everyday.
Whenever I feel down or angry, I allow myself to embrace
the fact that one friend will make it all okay.
(Photo credit: Love to Write)
YWP NEWSLETTER- 8.20.18
THE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
Welcome back to the Young Writers Project Newsletter!! Hope you all have had a great end of summer reading, writing, getting inspired, maybe doing some long put-off homework, trying to hold on to what little heat Vermont has left us. Enjoy this weather while it lasts! Remeber to post your own writing and photography to get recognition for your art.
Skip this next paragraph; just reminders about the newsletter and YWP happenings.
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 LukeTheDuke, Abriatis, Drift, mythicalquill, lila woodard, and Rubber Soul
View all previous newsletters here.
by LukeTheDuke
All the ideas are taken
and I don’t know what I should write.
Being one inch tall and a giant awakens?
Or maybe the power of flight?
No, it’s been done; I’ve seen it before!
To steal their ideas would be theft.
I’m sitting here with an empty page,
but there are simply no ideas left!
You see, Hollywood knows what it’s doing –
rebooting an old film or just making a sequel.
And if that doesn’t work
‘cause they need some green,
who’s to stop them from making a prequel?
But I don’t want to do that.
I want to be new! To make something fresh and exciting.
If I had been born
a hundred years in the past,
I’d have so many ideas for my writing!
Then my 6-year-old bro says,
“Wouldn’t it be cool – the story of an outer space hen?”
And I look at my page, start writing things down,
realizing what a big fool I have been.
(Photo credit: Abriatis)
by Drift
I thought I was good at this.
The whole
"Say goodbye and move on"
ordeal.
I told myself it was routine
and it was exhilarating every time.
I used to hail change as my savior,
because it felt like despite
my stable home
I was still wrapped in a blanket
of turmoil.
I love adventuring.
I love the unfamiliarity.
I crave chaos like it craves me.
There was nothing I loved more
than my muscles twitching with anticipation
just waiting for my next move,
the spontaneity
and the unexpected
that was vast enough to swallow me whole.
I loved that.
Or so I thought.
I was raised in this world
to move like a sprint,
to pounce as if it was my vice.
I was fine with that,
I accepted that and believed it.
Why am I hesitating?
Why are there clothes scattered on my floor,
littered like the bodies of old versions of myself?
Why are the boxes and the bags and the labels downstairs
haunting my nights?
All of a sudden,
I'm frozen to the spot.
I'm paralyzed with fear,
and it's struck me straight through
to my core.
I'm reminded I'm still a child,
lost
and in love with my family.
I love my friends
and my safety,
and it's getting harder to tear myself away from that.
The blisters on my hands from scissors
are expanding
and they're ready to burst
as I snip at every last tie.
Goodbye is the last thing I wish to say.
I thought I was good at this.
(Photo credit: mythicalquill)
YWP NEWSLETTER- 8.13.18
THE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
It's mid-August already!! Who's ready for school? Yeah. . .me neither. Hope everyone has had plenty of time to write and enjoy the work of fellow young writers even though the summer has gone by so fast! Rememeber to post and share your creations to get feedback and publication!
This next paragraph is a YWP Newsletter info update, skip it if you're a regular/
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 EmilyAnne, chloen, Rovva, Abriatis, dogpoet, Hazel.C., and BloodMoon825
View all previous newsletters here.
by EmilyAnne
I'm making jam at 8:30 in the morning,
a humid, rainy morning.
I wonder if this isn't Vermont,
and instead, everyone's been fooling me;
I must be in Florida.
I look over my shoulder and
see a hummingbird drinking from that fake red flower we put up
and worry if the fox is near the chickens,
who cluck blissfully in their pen.
I wonder if next year I'll be New York City,
grabbing coffee in a crowded bakery with steamy windows.
Or taking a stroll around the quiet streets of Santa Barbara,
my hair getting lighter the longer I stay in the sun.
Or watching the leaves slowly turn gold,
as I take a bus into Boston for an escape of theater and gardens.
Or maybe I'll be in Colorado,
skiing...which I haven't done in years.
I could be anywhere.
It's an exciting time to be alive, isn't it?
(Photo credit, above: chloen)
by Rovva
I can hear the choir,
crying in the night,
shouting inaudibly,
barely kept in harmony.
And though their voices ring,
like chiming bells,
and their shrieks,
shatter my heart,
I cover my ears,
and duck my head,
for the raven squawks,
high in the forked tree.
I mustn't listen.
I mustn't see.
I mustn't hear,
the song of Thana,
for I am afraid.
The shadows which,
beseech me to follow,
are but a trick of the light.
I have lost my mind,
yet my soul is intact,
and they have come,
to rip it from me.
O, I have fathomed my grave!
My mind is buried,
and my bones ache.
Come sweet,
come bitter.
Come warm,
come cold.
Come cheery,
come weary.
Come!
Take me away!
by dogpoet
Small girl walks
forward,
to take her turn at last,
to quench her thirst.
Small girl wears
a dusty white rag, dirty and ripped from it's journy.
Small girl looks
like a dust moat fairy,
hair in a featherlight knot of dust, feet in a layer of dirty dust, face and arms and legs covered
in
dust.
Small girl feels
tired
thirsty
dry
sore
craving water
dusty.
Dust
settles
down.
(Photo redit, right: Hazel.C.)
you like to test the waters,
i like to dive right in.
you tread softly,
and i am heard from a mile away.
you are earth,
and i am fire.
but we need each other.
that's why i love you.
--BloodMoon825
YWP NEWSLETTER- 8.6.18
THE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
This is the first newletter of August!! This is MY first time making it, and I'm looking forward to selecting all the great pieces you guys create. Hope you all will enjoy viewing some great writing and photography. Remember to upload your poetry, stories, and pictures to get featured!!
You know the drill. . .skip this next part if you regularly check the YWP Newsletter.
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 nean_bean, Love to Write, Abriatis, mythicalquill, Drift, lwood, and Icestorm
View all previous newsletters here.
by nean_bean
I saw your eyes first.
You had a little bit of grey behind them.
Your eyebrows strung together,
And your forehead knit itself into a scarf.
I think it would be orange.
You said
“This is for me?”
As if you were surprised
That someone would take the
Time to make something for you.
...
I said “yes it’s for you (silly)”
Your scarf unraveled quite quickly.
You kinda bit your lip
Before you smiled.
It was a small smile.
It was only a tiny bit of light let
In
Through the blinds.
(Photo credit, above: mythicalquill)
by Love to Write
It was sunny the morning everything left.
The birds in the trees,
ripples on the water,
and you in your shaft of light,
eyes closed,
dust in your short, dark hair.
We were happy,
I would have it forever.
And then, you left.
Quiet steps down the walk
and a train ticket in a worn-out
overall pocket.
And you wrote me
but me but I never did the same.
Because who leaves without saying goodbye
(except the sun, maybe)?
And who forgets to close the door
on the way out
(except when you’re in such a big hurry
you forget who you’re leaving)?
Don't you remember who
we were together?
(Photo credit, left: Drift)
by Abriatis
I am tired of not feeling safe.
Is it because I am a girl?
Is it because I go to high school?
Is it because I've been pressured to drink by my own family?
I do not know.
I am just tired of it.
I am tired of thirty-year-old men staring at me after a bike race once I changed into the well-fitting shirt I received.
I am tired of hearing my classmates speculate on who was most likely to bring a gun to school.
I am tired of getting messages on Facebook from my twenty-three-year-old cousin, asking me if I want to 'get shitfaced'.
I just want to feel safe in my own skin.
I don't want to stand with my arms over my chest.
I don't want to think about what would happen if someone brought a gun to school.
I don't want to block my own family online, when I know I won't see them for months.
Is it bad to want out? Out of this..torment?
My problems are just laughed at. They're not worth the anxiety they cause.
It's because I'm a kid, isn't it?
A dumb, naive, fifteen-year-old girl.
It's just my hormones, isn't it?
It's just my imagination, isn't it?
It always is.
(Photo credit, right: Drift)
There's so many words in us that we just let loose to drift
Floating in the still air, they make up the space between us
Most of them go unnoticed and uncommented on
Maybe we wanted it that way, but most likely we didn't
--lwood
ART GALLERY
YWP Newsletter- 7.30.18
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.
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)
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.)
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)
Newsletter- 7.23.18
THE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
More newslettering! I hope you enjoy it! And as always, 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 GabriellaF, nishah101, serenamae2020, Aidster21, glu.gun, and Abriatis.
YWP HAPPENINGS
YWP has moved to a new office at the Karma Birdhouse in Burlington!
Summer of Stories is happening! Read more here.
View all previous newsletters here.
Make sure you're reading all the great summer work here!
by GabriellaF
The quiet comes
like a cat stalking prey
It sits hanging in the air
reminding of loneliness and pain.
Trapping, suffocating, killing
with its emptiness
(photo credit, above: nishah101)
by serenamae2020
Flickering bulbs
shadows light my prison
The silence is deafening
He's here for me
I'm out again
how?
In a car
wheels rumble
going where?
Thump,
thump,
thump,
goes my heart
Door opens
forced out
Fought
Dumped,
like nothing happened
Seeing stars
Highway traffic
Sirens
They're here
I am free
(photo credit, left: Aidster21)
by glu.gun
Sometimes I forget
That my vases,
Porcelain and decorated with intricate cerulean details,
The result of years of hard work and sweat,
The ones that are now shattered, jagged, and ruined,
Scattered on the marble floor in shards,
Appear merely as wooden blocks to the passersby.
To them, it was once a sturdy tower
And it will be again, as if time had waited.
To them, my problems appear small and ordinary,
Easily fixable.
I wish I had known this earlier.
(photo credit, right: nishah101)
The Art Gallery
YWP Newsletter- 7.16.18
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.
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)
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)
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 )
You will always be you;
Forever.
And, Love...
That’s a long time to hate yourself.
--lila woodard