Young Writers Society

sometimes I forget who I am.

I don't mean in the sense of the blinding rages my father used to experience,
not the quiet tears my mother cried either,
when she asks me why she'd done the things she'd done,
how she'd brought herself to run the way she did.

I forgot in the way that I've been meaning to, wanting to, for years,
and it's terrifying.
I started with my reflection;
I pulled and prodded at my features like some plastic surgeon,
twisted my skin and ripped apart my clothes,
cotton tearing like paper, old stories I'd written,
poems when I barely understood what words meant.

And now I look at myself and all I can find are my eyes,
less raw, quieter, a laugh and a half,
studying myself and recognizing,
"yes, there's a freckle, faded as it is,
I think that's mine" and I smile and wonder what I'm laughing at,
because there's not much funny in falling away;

I forget in repetition--
in the doing, in getting used to things being the way they are,
because they change so much but that change is just a pattern
unfolding, stitching itself through the whole time I've been alive--
like the cracks of pavement outside my apartment.
they used to map out the decay of Prague,
like some disease where the skin of the city
slowly peels back and there are the moths and the ants
that invaded our kitchen in the summer, slowly marching past the
sink to the window, and we left then,
to memories, to California where I am
still a person, I think.

I think.

sometimes I want to drink up the creek across my childhood house
because I can imagine it tasting like the years
that I know have gone by: they call me 18 now,
old as anything in my eyes, and they tell me that's been a long, long time
since I've been home.

I nod and sleep, because going home is exhausting,
not from the jetlag, not from the plane,
not from the car ride whose soft hushing rhythm is lullaby enough for me
when I haven't been in a car for a year and a half.

I soak my feet and climb my trees and my limbs feel as long as the branches now,
and the jump is a step, and sometimes I can reach up
and grasp the leaves like they were each year gone by,
each dream that I've dreamt;
they crackle and fall to pieces as I try to hold them, and are lost
in the ferns and poison oak.

they cover my skin,
little pieces of leaves, and they cover me like every autumn used to,
like each moment that I've missed,
every piece of something that I've left.

I just want to say, considering what you said in your spoiler, I really loved this. The imagery was beautiful and your language and, well, just everything...which I know is more or less what I normally say of your poetry. I think this really spoke to me just because I'm away from home now...what I consider home, anyway...and whether or not you really meant to be talking about being away from home and coming back home, that is what it meant to me.

So, yeah. I really loved this. I unfortunately don't have suggestions for improvement at the moment (I'm actually supposed to be taking notes on this geology lecture right now), but I can't wait to read a revised version or published version in the future...

~Blue

Dear, this might be the most real piece of poetry you've ever written.

Reality aside, this is raw, and its beautiful in its rawness. It has this sort of ache, as if touching on something that still stings, and the poem in itself creates this sort of tension. The only way to describe it would have to be defined by a haunting ache. A nostalgic slow-burn.

Now, back to the original thought. Reality is something very often dismissed in poetry. The idea of the words in themselves outdo the reasons for using them, and all we are left with is a jumble of mixed-matched thoughts and imagery that flit across the screen and the eye as fast as the words do. The meaning is always there but lost within its almost superficial ideology, as if the point of writing the poem was to write a poem and then to prove something on the side whilst doing it.

This, though, felt as if you had something worth saying and that poetry just sort of happened. That you didn't mean for it to happen but it did and what it created was simply and riddled with so many things I could nit-pick and note about but can't and wont. The beauty in this is that it is so beautifully, ridiculously, hauntingly real.

Now, as it goes, I will note on a few things that could probably be fixed up. For instance;

because I can imagine it tasting like the years
that I know have gone by:

This sounds an awful lot like

and grasp the leaves like they were each year gone by,
each dream that I've dreamt;

that.

You use two pieces of very lovely imagery and then explain the exact same thing, which might have slipped by in the rereading process. I realize that more than one thing can remind you of years but the idea of years should be intertwined rather than dawned on, forgotten, then brought up again when the whim seems right. You could do something really interesting if you choose to use one, or intertwine both together at once.

Now, I will say that I like the length of this, mostly because its gorgeous, but also because it explains quite a bit about you. And its brilliant in that sense.

All in all, I want to see more of you in your writing. You have so much to say, hun, so say it.

~Walker

I'm going to review this, but I'm not sure what is actually going to happen.

This is utterly gorgeous, you've written lovely things before but this has the right kind of stamp of personal to push it into memorable. You do need to go through this again and shift out the redundancies, which Walks has already pointed out and I would consider your line breaks again (You know I'm a bit of a googly about line breaks), although I think the ones you have are serving very nicely. Asking you to check them is more to make sure that they're looking like the content of the poem - I would consider trying to fashion this almost like a tree. Wide, echoing downward. There's nothing wrong with image poetry, particularly if you get it right. And that might be something fun/interesting to do in relation to what you're trying to say.

Have more faith in what you're doing. We WILL have a poetry session as soon as we both have time, I think we want to talk about considering the value of honesty. You don't need metaphor to be interesting, you don't even need imagery. You just need the right kind of voice, and you have that here.

Love and such. <3

sometimes I forget who I am.

I don't mean in the sense of the blinding rages my father used to experience,
not the quiet tears my mother cried either,
when she asks me why she'd done the things she'd done,
how she'd brought herself to run the way she did.

I forgot in the way that I've been meaning to, wanting to, for years,
and it's terrifying.
I started with my reflection;
I pulled and prodded at my features like some plastic surgeon,
twisted my skin and ripped apart my clothes,
cotton tearing likepaper, old stories I'd written,
poems when I barely understood what words meant.

And now I look at myself and all I can find are my eyes,
less raw, quieter, a laugh and a half,
studying myself and recognizing,
"yes, there's a freckle, faded as it is,
I think that's mine" and I smile and wonder what I'm laughing at,
because there's not much funny in falling away;

I forget in repetition--
in the doing, in getting used to things being the way they are,
because they change so much but that change is just a pattern
unfolding, stitching itself through the whole time I've been alive--
like the cracks of pavement outside my apartment.
they used to map out the decay of Prague,
like some diseasewhere the skin of the city
slowly peels back and there are the moths and the ants
that invaded our kitchen in the summer, slowly marching past the
sink to thewindow, and we left then,
to memories, to California where I am
still a person, I think.

I think.

sometimes I want to drink up the creek across my childhood house
because I can imagine it tasting like the years
that I know have gone by: they call me 18 now,
old as anything in my eyes, and they tell me that's been a long, long time
since I've been home.

I nod and sleep, because going home is exhausting,
not from the jetlag, not from the plane,
not from the car ride whose soft hushing rhythm is lullaby enough for me
when I haven't been in a car for a year and a half.

I soak my feet and climb my trees and my limbs feel as long as the branches now,
and the jump is a step, and sometimes I can reach up
and grasp theleaveslike they were each year gone by,
each dream that I've dreamt;
they crackle and fall to pieces as I try to hold them, and are lost
in the ferns and poison oak.

they cover my skin,
little pieces of leaves, and they cover me like every autumn used to,
like each moment that I've missed,
every piece of something that I've left.

Powerful piece. Well done. I appreciate the tune and tone, the attention to language and simplicity. Consider the above cuts. The conclusion is a little weak.

Kylan

Great poetry! I really enjoyed reading this, and the imagery was very vivid. Though I think you can change 'each dream that I've dreamt' to 'and dream that I've dreamt about growing up,' but it's just a suggestion. It's pretty good the way it is, so it's up to you.