Collegare, Young Writers of Earth [graded readers TXT] 📗

COL●LE●GA●RE
Italian
v. to connect


Everyone in the world has something to offer. Everyone shares something every now and then by choice, nature, or chance. Why does this happen? Because along with our existence comes the necessity of connection. The moment we connect, we offer something from ourselves. It is inevitable however that we differ in this connection. Some people connect too little that their experiences are jailed in what’s within their easy reach; some people connect too much they lose track of who they are. Have you ever wondered how much your life would be different had you connected differently?

In this collection of poems and short stories, writers 12-30 years old all over the world show how they connect to their experiences, thoughts, and feeling through writing. These literary pieces have all been featured on our website www.youngwritersofearth.webnode.com and were picked from the several submissions Young Writers of Earth received this year.

As you read through them, may the authors’ words draw you to their thoughts, giving you the token of momentary connection.

R. V. 8 2 1


Young Writers of Earth © 2011
Editors:
Jen Thompson
Jessica Secret
Rae Maybee
Tamikka Malloy
Ree Villaruel

THANK YOU
Eli Moskowitz

Crumpled bedsheet,
Roaches dead on dried hot sauce on the floor,
Pillow beside the fridge,
Used clothes turned into rags,
Shards in the bathroom (not really, just broken DVDs),
Air spoiled with cognac and cigar.
It’s morning but it’s dark.
It’s summer but I feel cold.

Thank you for the broken heart.


MORNING SUNSHINE
Dana Jamieson

So it’s another sunrise,
And she’s still tired from yesterday.
They say “It’s another day”,
Yet she could not feel a sense of recentness.

She’s stuck in the past,
She’s stuck in her own memories.
She remembers what will happen,
And has no clue of what was done.
Ten o’clock she finally gets off the bed
“It’s still morning”,
she says.


LAST NOTE
Janis Torre

Send my love
to the victims of

your love.


ANY LOVE
Sarah Murphy

Just wanting
something,
anything,
this town wouldn’t swallow alive.
Throw back its gullet
then dissipate.

Draw me a lie,
color in the truth.
“This is the last story
I will ever tell,”
I say.
Even more,
it’s just the beginning.

As dervishes,
we whirl about our days,
tongue tied
to thoughts
of one another.

Perhaps this is the real magic,
the lost shoe,
the tower too high to climb,
the stalks growing still.

Resolution?
What is in a resolution?
The story is arcing,
still arcing,
grasping for the
most climactic point.

Fearing cutting the chord
before the end,
the little death.
Unravel the rope
and shake those
strands
loose of the noose.

Love will not die anymore
and we have not reached
The End.


CEASEFIRE
Cody Beaton

They throw the bomb at the enemy
and another barrel motions.
They pull the trigger with passion,
and the other hold their swords with valor.

Have they ever tried to cease?

risk their lives not for another
grandshow of hatred, but for the more courageous
choice of peace?

No one will fight if there’s no one to fight with.

Such foolish men
to let hatred kill them,
and not the other way around.


BEACHED
Sarah Murphy

This is just it.
That I can no longer sleep;
sandy eyed and gritty mouthed.
It’s this far off distant land
of a dream that I once had
between you and me
that’s so compelling .
I try to tell myself that it’s dead,
that it’s the grains that I hold in my hand
that move my fleet forward.
But my mind doesn’t want to understand
because it’s my heart that holds the captain’s wheel
as it steers my body ship
into these coral shoals.
Maybe I’ll just wash up,
slowly leaking saline in the haze of the sun.
Or maybe your native body will be standing on the shoreline
singing that same siren song.
But it’s too late to tie my soul to the mast
because I already ran it to the highest point.
It’s my astrolabe.
My compass.
My golden Orient star.
Maybe I’m only destined
to love you from afar.


BEAUTY IN THE BALL
Carl Macleoid

Look around,
See what I found
A beautiful face,
A body of grace.
I need to know her name,
I don’t have shame,
I’ll ask her for a dance,
She’ll leave me entranced.

Look around,
See what I found,
Another man kissing her so
Tender and light,
What a feeling to fight.
She looks so happy,
and I will go home,
as always,
so bored, so lonely.


JUST ONCE
Clair Nicol

What do my limbs feel
tonight that I’m sleeping beside you?
It’s more than a young lady’s
sense of requiescence
beside a friendly stranger.
This is what everything I am wants.
Drown me with your strength tonight,
And when I can’t breathe,
Embrace me tight till it breaks my bones,
Let my cheeks rest on your chest,
Let my ears listen to your assuring heartbeat.
Leave me a memory to last a series of lifetimes.


TRACE OF YOU
Shatella Hightower

My day was ruined
all because
I smelled the scent of olives
as I passed by
the market this morning.
Or maybe,
it’s because
the scent reminded me of you.


A LOVELY SIGHT
Miguel Chea

As I am sitting here in the corner
of a usual four-faced room
with mirrors on the wall,
watching you dance
with delight and grace,
I am satisfied.
For once, I’m happy just looking.
Not a view of nature,
but still a natural view.


WHAT SHOULD BE FACED?
Jessica Edmunds

the vulnerability of the morning bliss
ignored by careless shouts of foolish men,
the sound that old trees make as they spoke to the wind
that could never topple over mad explosions
Well, reality is never as clear as old people think,
as it is the most unsure and confusing design
to have penetrated the human consciousness.


UNKNOWN
Haya Collins

We are here
Face to face
Yet I'm still searching for you.


APART
Sheila Wang

For order’s sake,
I return to the world
where whispers of saints numb the tiniest of organisms,
fragrant words on the outside
blemished within walls, while all the sinners’ bones
go strong in every sigh of goodness, dissimilar to what’s
written in the book. No need to feel this place as venom,
I will come inside with still nerves, and depart with eyes closed.


VICTIMS
Andrew Cruz

Predilection choking truth
Fingers ensuing disobedience
Lips hands and breathing
All caving in to the darkness
And coldness of this December dusk
No words told, no guilt recognized
No room for thoughts,
Just this pull between us.


BROKEN VOW
Haya Collins

red robe
for his wife
she never knew
was a hand-me-down


BETTER ON THE GROUND
Angela Heming

The grass is greener on the side, they say.
But I don’t have faith and I don’t know how to believe.
What is green is what is here
What is greener and greenest too.
I don’t believe in what I cannot see, in what I cannot control.
People believe too much on the unknown
but to make the most out of life,
our attention should be focused on what is here.
What is outside our understanding
Has no use, no meaning, no point.


FOUR SEASONS
Karen Leidner

Winter is over
And so are we
Spring’s coming
Don’t come back to me
Don’t call me when it’s autumn
I would have probably moved on
And when it’s winter once again
Don’t ask me to be your friend
I let the seasons pass
To shape us
Into strangers that we will be


5 THINGS I THINK ABOUT WHEN YOU HOLD MY HAND
Shidalia Diaz

I think your hand is too soft for a boy,
so fragile I might break your bone any second.
I think your hand is way too cold, which makes me
wonder why I choose to hold
a hand that doesn’t give warmth.
I think your hand is too boney it almost hurts sometimes.
Yet I think about not freeing my hand forever,
just intertwine it with yours,
for I don’t mind not being free, as long as it means
being with you.
And finally, when you hold my hand, and I hold yours,
I think: life is good.


HUMAN
DG Kortig

Bliss befalls on my skin
whenever the sun rises,
Sorrow draws in my veins
whenever the sun sets.
Everything that comes in between
are only preparations,
just like the introduction of life
and the conclusion of death,
or vice-versa,
everything in the middle
are nothing but education.


NEVER COMPLETELY
Anny Henderson

Only until my lips
could feel the warmth
of this delectable creation
without having to touch
the impure edges of its goblet
can my tongue exult utterly
in the lusciousness of
this coffee.


AFTER ALL
Presley Nolan

Curses all around drowning the only sound
I’d want to hear.
The sun was too high
And I could not see your face.
Everyone’s mad and I could not see your smile.
The world’s turning faster
And I could not run to you,
Couldn’t even dance to our song,
Couldn’t even learn what I know.
Too much is here and nothing is mine,
Everything is older and lights have faded.
I closed my eyes and wept a little, didn’t move and didn’t think.
I heard your voice and all the curses drowned.


BOOK FOR A RAINY DAY
Alaina King

my name soaked
in dark blue ink,
my skin pricked a zillion times
for free--
I have lost my identity.
He has used me once
and not even for my purpose.


TO MY BELOVED
Roy Jenkins

What I want to do now
is what I would love to be doing
the moment the world ends:
Take you to the air.

I’m not trying to be poetic,
these are just sentences.
but this is not a joke:
I’ll take you to the air.

Sadly, by the time you
get out of your dream,
I have already pressed cltr+a and the
left arrow key. So you wouldn’t have any evidence of
something that I would love to do:
Take you to the air.

I do not have to tell you,
You do not have to know—
It’s not your wings that we’ll make use of.

So I’ll take you to the air someday,
And with my