Young Writers discussion

tenderling. n.

1. a young, weak, effeminate person
2. one made tender by too much kindness; a fondling.
3. one of the first antlers of a deer.

a collection of poetry

for betel nut girl


The sky is always orange this time of night,
day after day of flashing neon and betel nuts
he spits them out with all the disdain he has for her --
“Don’t make a scene,” he says, and there’s a warning
somewhere in his tone, as he steers her away
away from red sirens and the other identical girls in miniskirts and stilettos

It’s only six but the sky darkens early this time of year
a bitter chill settling into her bones. He holds her
tight, too tight, her tottering in those ridiculous shoes
and drags her across one street after the next --
hurrying, but she knows they have nowhere to go.

She learned early on that two layers of eyelashes
would be enough to hide the hurt --
he knows exactly how to trap her in his grip,
loving and menacing in the same instant.
the skin he traces his hands on is made of stardust
and crumbling self-esteem --
somewhere between then and forever
she stopped looking at him like he was her salvation.
only resignation.

But sometimes there’s a desperation that claws
at the back of her throat,
making her choke on all those unsaid words --

he is darkness,
Jupiter’s forever hurricane,
enormous and engulfing and too distant to think about
she claws through the ruins of his destruction for any sign of smoulders,
waiting to be rekindled

Have you ever posted poetry before because I don't remember ever reading something like this?? This is absolutely fantastic.

Thank you so much Hayden!! That means so much coming from you as I adore your poetry..
I've never posted poetry in this group before, but I've wanted to start for awhile & just decided to go for it haha
Glad you like it though!

Dana! I love this poem and I took a look at the rest of your poetry as well. Your style is very interesting and poignant. Beautiful.

Thank you for sharing!

How. I just. what. Dana.

The imagery of the sky and how it parallels her hope and just your imagery in general and how everything is perfect and how do you make it so perfect and teach me how to poetry.

Woww I like this a lot, great job!

Whoa this is gorgeous, Dana! I hope you will post more! :D

Thank you guys all so much!! It's exam week for me right now so I haven't had much time to write but I'll be sure to keep posting in this thread! Thanks for all your support, I didn't imagine my poetry would be so well-received ^_^

This is amazing.

a quick sketch

i would paint you if it meant i could keep you like that forever
in a state of effervescence and earnestness
i remember the way you looked at me, in the moment
forgetting all the heartache and isolation and sorrow

i would paint us. as a starry starry night
listening to each others' heartbeats echoing off the same paper thin wall
shadows in the nighttime and just falling
away, i mean, into abysses but never into each other

i would draw us as personified tangent lines
and hope that one day you would understand what it means
to fall in love, from a calculated, mathematical distance
with a whirlwind i could not touch for fear of destroying your nature

My gosh Dana these are amazing! Please do keep writing, love it!

Dana wrote: " a quick sketch

i would paint you if it meant i could keep you like that forever
in a state of effervescence and earnestness
i remember the way you looked at me, in the moment
forgetting all t..."

Ooh <3

thought i'd post something i've been working on; it's a culmination of a pretty emotional week, & i know it's not as good/polished as ^ those poems, but yeahh :)

i'm always fluctuating between bad and worse;
the comings and goings of a girl who falls apart like stale
pull-apart bread you tried to make from a Pinterest tutorial,
but if i'm always ascending, i'll never know where i'm going
only somewhere in the sky at the end of this tedious crawl
on the supposedly desirable GPA upward trend

but i know i couldn't save myself,
nosediving into a downward spiral
c o m p u l s i v e l y, don't you get it

i can't rid this chill from my flesh no matter how
hard I try; i can't remove these visceral emotions,
so deeply felt, impossible to articulate

my mother sprinkles turmeric on my noodles to warm my hands
but nothing could move this stone cold heart

so what happens next? i am the outdated model destined for
the closet corner (i fear i will never come out (again))

here's a secret, little one,
of what will come next for you
(yes, it must be far too late for me, but i could still save your heart):
your hair was innocent once, but it will lose its luster and sheen
to sheets and sweat and long beautiful fingers. don’t worry.
they will come, and you will adore them with beautiful, heartbroken eyes

this is the drill; little sister, never let them steal the sparkle
behind your cobalt mascara.

homeostasis

this is what happens when i fall out of homeostasis;
binge-drinking dark red grape juice
and watching your favorite television shows, trying to find something,
anything we could bond over,

but if it did, i’d still have nothing to say in computer binary
the spaces of us could never fit in 01001110101, but you were never
willing to try anyway. i think i must’ve read too much patricia lockwood
today, instead of eating
i tell him i’ve only eaten two, three meals in the past two days
and one of them was a large order of fries from mcdonald’s,
salted grease fingers, the only girl in the rain without an umbrella
he says “how are you still alive?” and i say “i don’t know”
with a kind of shrugging nonchalance because i don’t really feel alive

the feeling is port wine coloured,
the sort of mania only fools love;
highs and lows like a heartbeat monitor,
sinking, sinking, sinking, shooting up like a basketball
and the roar of crowds as it swishes. too caught up in the moment,
always too caught up in the moment, a kind of fragility ruined by your flippancy
you ruin me
am i not a broken little thing

i take deep breaths to remind myself
it’s not your fault you can’t love a mess like me
i am trying not to be too buoyed by this boy, way too codependent:
for my own good, but you light me up and it’s so hard because
what else am i supposed to do