Young Writers Society

Note: I adapted some bits of writing for the 100 themes challenge into a single piece. Then I was like bam, I want to submit this to the Creative Anything contest. Then I had an entry.

Nobody has ever taught me a belief system. I am grateful for this. It allows me to better listen.

-Julia (some called her Jule) believed in God. She had nails whose curved white tips were always longer than mine, even if she had just clipped them. She rode on the bus with me, our seatbeats loose so we would sway in our seats, a clever way around following safety precautions. She knew my big sister, and my big sister liked her much better than she did me. And she believed in God.
Used to say things like: “The middle finger’s a curse, you can only point it if you’re pointing down, ‘cause that’s where hell is.”
We both cursed hell in secret under the faux wood lunch table.
Used to say things like: “I don’t like Harry Potter, God’s the only real magic in the world.”
I stopped constantly needling my sister, asking when I would finally be old enough to read all about the wizardring world.
My parents looked at each other and asked me if I wanted to go to church, that they could drop me off and pick me up. If that was what I wanted.
I don’t think I regret my decision.
‘Cause hey, the way I see it, if I can make my own heaven, I make my own rules.-

- -Rebecca (some call her Becca) makes all of Earth heaven because she tries. She laughs like all the world is a joke, sings like all the world is a (willing) audience, listens like all the world is speaking, and gives like all the world is in need.
And it is, to an extent.
I could tell you that she studies for courses we haven’t taken yet, that she can’t stand listening to descriptions of injuries, that she’s the most ticklish person on the face of the planet. (That there are so many things I can’t tell you because it would be the height of betrayal.)
She lives like she isn’t ashamed of it.
Says, “I don’t believe in God as a person so much as something like goodness or hope. Because praying to him gives people real strength and comfort, so that makes it so that he has to be real in that way.”
And she makes all of Earth heaven because she tries.- -

Nobody has ever taught me a belief system. But they speak, and I listen, taking the memory of voices and drawing their incandescence into threads, weaving them together until I may touch the truth.


I speak of thoughts and of moments, for they are what I can call my own in this world.

- - Life is a complex chain of circles, within, after, in between each other.
Is our short-sightedness the only thing that provides an illusion of meaning?
(The world is spherical yet it appears to be flat.)
You don’t have to believe in destiny to see pattern and cycle within pattern and cycle.
Life is a complex chain of circles, within, after, in between each other.
Let me ask you this: Do you believe we can break away completely?
Do you believe we should try? ---

I speak of thoughts and of moments, my words stepping stones, my own path to destinations discovered and those that are not.
(Is our short-sightedness the only thing that provides an illusion of meaning?)

- - Sometimes the moonlight’s so beautiful I stay awake to look at it.
It happens on summer nights. I open my eyes to find my dusty corner of the universe transformed by rays of cold silver.
Sometimes I write, scribbling furiously on paper I can’t see, my eyes fixed on the sky.
Sometimes I sit, feeling the light slip over my skin, my eyes closed because I don’t need them to see.
These moments are special, wrapped in wonder and solitude, laced with soft voices not meant to be heard, set against the symphony of nighttime insects, saturated in a brilliant light not their own. –

I speak of thoughts and of moments. Circles and moonlight. My voice falters should I speak of more.
(Do you believe we should try?)


I have listened and I have spoken, but there are some things I cannot tell.

---------- It’s dark. The bedroom is small, carpet sticking to my bare toes. My throat’s full of mucus, eyes full of tears.
My sister’s crying in the bottom bunk. She does that a lot. She’s talking about her friend who ran away, how she hopes she’ll find a shelter, how she thinks she might get raped.
I don’t know what rape is and I’m scared because those things don’t really happen, do they, not here outside of books, and I should tell Mommy and Daddy-
“Don’t. Please.”
The tears and mucus are in my mouth, I have to stay quiet to keep them in.
It’s dark. The is ceiling is staring at me, so I stare back. My hands are fisted in the blankets, my ears ringing with silence and sound.
My sister’s angry, hoarse whispers sounds from the bottom bunk. She does that a lot. She’s talking about how it’s ridiculous that gay people can’t get married, that it’s a right, that don’t I think so too?
I’m nine years old. I hesitate.
“Homophobic.”
The anger and confusion are twisting in my chest, I inhale, exhale so that they’re buried enough that maybe I won’t cry.
There’s a measuring stick in her appraising eyes, and up against her ever changing heroes and ideals, I can never come close to making the mark ------------

There are thoughts and moments, then there are feelings and memories.
There is speaking, then there is silence.


I have listened, I have spoken, I have shown.
I have drawn my lines in ink.
Others may read this, but you have to know that every single word is for you.

The light of a firefly
((This is our secret. The world doesn’t deserve to know.)
(Singing in a soundproof room, and you’re the only one inside. Painting for a blind world, and you’re the only one with eyes.
I expose to you my ugliness, which somehow you can’t see.
I search hard for goodness in myself, you say you find it easily.))
kept cradled between palms.

A hundred lines of ink, threaded with moonlight.
Every single word is for you.
-

So hey, I checked this out, and a lot of them are pretty cool. I'll only address the ones I was particularly interested in, or had qualms with.

1. I just wanted to point out how I liked the last two sentences because they were such a paradox. The first one is welcoming and inviting, but the second one is cautionary and a little bit threatening. I feel that's a real good show of character, because your personality as a writer really shines.
2. This is again something I was impressed with. The parenthesis was a really good visual of acting like the palms that cup the firefly. It also provides a personal feeling, something you tried to get across I think. The only thing I don't really like is it's title. Why is it called love?
4. This one was heartbreaking, because it shows the complex sister relationship. I think a possible cause of this was age because there seems to be an age disparity between the two sisters. The younger one's feelings of not quite satisfying her sister was really sad.
7. The way the first and last sentence of this paragraph began and ended with "believed in God" was quite neat. Is this just me, or is it supposed to mimic the swaying of the girls in the seat? As though they swayed first to one side, but always went back to where they started because of the seat belt's restraint? Maybe I'm digging too much of it.
And I think maybe this was a typo, but you repeated the word "about" when you were talking about Harry Potter.