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• Fiction > All Fiction
  Digression

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  Stephen sat up when Death knocked on the door. He was there to collect Stephen the way children collect laughter. Stephen opened the door; he was not very bright with things like this. When he was younger his sister smashed a vase over his head after his provoking grew into gaping creatures. After ...
• Fiction > All Fiction
  How Not to Serve Cold Cuts at Funerals

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  Dear Poppy, You died about three years ago and as your granddaughter you probably expected me to be extremely sad. I’m very sorry but I wasn’t exactly devastated. You were old and sick and I didn’t know you all too great. We live way out here to avoid most of the family but you know all abo...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Victim of an Amateur Arsonist

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  There is a fire inside of me Lit between penciled ribs and left to burn My fire gives off coffee smoke trapping my liquid lungs Filling up inside red walls galloping across my chest You cannot see this fire with your extinguisher eyes You don’t notice my flaming fingers and grey smoked though...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  There's More to Her Life than We Know

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  She has a black heart drawn across her wrist. Maybe her own heart. Or her dad’s heart, broken after the divorce. Or the baby’s heart since he was born without one beating. A dead thing inside his chest. Or her friend’s heart that always had another heart beating with hers and hands grasping at...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Pretty

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  There’s a fine line between pretty and sl** You have little chance at becoming either she tells me I may not be pretty but I know how to fake it My body doesn’t match my face but at least I still get wolf-whistled at by drinking boys I exercise some control over this mash-up of parts with ...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Night to Night

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  moon to earth, sun to sky, pills to brain brush to hair, glasses to eyes, pills to brain, makeup to face toothbrush to mouth, pills to brain scarf to neck, bra to chest, pills to brain, shirt to torso, knife to wrist pills to brain, color to nails, thong to skin pills to brain denim to skin, s...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  How to Stop Zach From Crying in the Car

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  For my brother it was the color orange All children need something and orange was it for him There is not much orange up here Mostly grey That is the opposite of orange if you ask me but no one does so I keep my thoughts to myself Mumbling rots children my teacher says I don’t want to rot ...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Elephants Aren't the Only Ones Who Never Forget

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  My mind is a river, you cross it often Some days you just stand on the shore Just above the tide line observing the life abundant there Other days you walk on the sand It continues into the darkest corners of me You do not venture there Occasionally you will wade into my thoughts Cuff up your...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Mix Tape

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  Quit playing on my heart strings I am not your violin do not try to play me anymore I can see past you and I know that I am something better I belong somewhere better with someone better than you I do not belong in an orchestra I do not belong in a crowd I need my own solo Quit playing on my hea...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Plastic Bag Forts

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  Watery ghosts linger in the hollows of her face, inside creases made by plastic bags stretched out from overflowing contents Apples strain to escape plastic prisons if only to be released into an acid stomach She walks in her heel-less shoes over broken glass roads to the only place she can call h...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Smoke Screens

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  Come closer with your hearts open but fists closed Raise your palms, signals to the heavens We entertained the masses once but they never knew it was only puppets and planned out speeches Memories are buried in hundred acres of woods so you may forget The only this you left behind was the shovel...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Margined

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  This is girl Ripped dresses hang onto hangers in an otherwise empty closet the same was dyed leaves do when the October wind begins its journey Chopped hair left on rug, desperation to make oneself mystery Two books lay together, one empty planner one filled diary as if by sharing space words wil...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Seven Year Old Soul

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  Trees shake like children under the eyes of their abusers Day is always overtaken by night but the stars alone hold their ground undaunted by the sound of retreat Leaves drop at the same rate of tears this fall so it’s no wonder everything was bare before September had truly risen leaving murky ...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  The Sick House

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  The people of this house are beautiful Probably because we are dying It is more dramatic Melting flesh leaves behind smoking eyes, steam escapes from leaky ears as memories go to war with each other all in the names of liberty, of forgetting Bloodied fingers, long and thin spiders’ legs, tryin...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  A Reason to Scratch

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  Itchy hearts beg to be scratched but wishes are left alone as owners fear what will escape if they do Dial tones go unanswered as they go about their business but deaf ears eavesdrop on their lives Leaky thoughts drip from scattered minds and torn wrists remember what it was like to be whole Bare...
• Fiction > Romance
  Southener

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  We are headed south you tell me. Only you would say something like that. Not drifting apart, breaking up; headed south. Are you mocking me? I mean I happen to love my beloved Atlantan roots but naturally you make south the offending player here. But ever since you took me from my blood red clay that...
• Fiction > Realistic Fiction
  Spring Cleaning

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  Mother asked me to clean out the room. That’s when I knew he wasn’t coming back, I opened his door gently knowing his doorknob was broken but it wasn’t worth it to fix it. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d been in there. I started with the top layers, skimming off the unimpor...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Untitled #4

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  I believe that if we look at something long enough it loses all of its meaning which is why I don’t spend too long looking at all of the pictures I have of you hung up on that wall Your letters are my one-a-day medication and I try not to read too much into what you wrote But I'm scared...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  The Army Lovers

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  My hands hold on that city with each calculated line drawn as twisted streets and my fingers are skyscrapers grazing the desert where you are now I wait up on the roof for you to show but you’re stuck in the underground fighting for a cause you don’t believe in but it sounded heroic so you jo...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Training Wheels

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  I live without training wheels so my falls sting more but my triumphs are greater than yours as I dive from the sun screaming to you on your shelf hoping you would take off your wheels but they’ve deafened you with facts so you don’t accept the unknown and they ke...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Doubting Broken Hearts

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  Things fall out and we fell down cuz we both kept trying to please the crowd I always thought mind over matter but boy you sure mattered a lot it seems...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Teenage Night

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  The stars are bright tonight Strung up alongside a watermelon moon as they flash down stories with each Morse Code flicker And a molasses sky drapes over two souls that fell off the bottoms of shoes keeping them warm The grass swallows them whole and they swim through molasses disguised as shooti...
• Fiction > Realistic Fiction
  Another Teenage Week

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  She always cries on Thursday. Thursdays are the low points of her weeks. Thursdays are when she wants to give up. The “you’re almost there” the cheerleaders say when you’re three-quarters of the way done. But she has no cheerleaders. No band playing out of tune fight songs. No screaming colo...
• Fiction > Realistic Fiction
  There's More to Her Life Than We Know

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  She has a black heart drawn across her wrist. Maybe her own heart. Or her dad’s heart, broken after the divorce. Or the baby’s heart since he was born without one beating. A dead thing inside his chest. Or her friend’s heart that always had another heart beating with hers and hands grasping at...
• Poetry > Free Verse
  Upon a Shelf

  

  By kysh15, Edmonds, WA

  Controversy loves my company and like pages in a book we were always laid out side by side with whispers as the words written upon us And when they pulled me from the safety of my burning spine the words were burned on my soul and the scars never faded but I never learned how to read You could say...