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late luminescence


You blink and look and stare
and stare

As if trying to find the snag in the dream
the catch in the sweater
the cards hidden up someone's sleeves

The meaning of this miracle that tapped you on the elbow
in a coffee shop last week
bright with a smile and a "how are you doing?"

accusatory eyes searching, wanting to know

if you still kept the ashes
of a flame,

clung to the warmth
of a trail

listened for the thrum
of a heartbeat

long cold.



posted on: https://youngwritersproject.org/node/46070


October 03, 2022 No comments

photo: yet another sunset in Arcadia, CA

Yesterday in the shower I washed dried cherry juice from under my nails and remembered how at dinner I inspected a heart between my fingers and cut it open with a knife. The blade was red and I tried to press the plump flesh to my lips in hopes it would make me beautiful.

I am a villain of this story, which is really to say I am the writer who is playing all of their characters at once. I am the god, I am the heartbroken and the heartbreaker, I am the sadistic manic who sits quietly in the corner and consults the main character to get the hell over herself.

The water washes away my dramatics, and underneath I am a canvas of bitter pith covered in the crescent indents of a forgotten fury. I am the sister who pretends to sleep when the ants go mad. I am an evil I haven’t met before. Even after the days have gone by, I look at my pink fingertips and swear I can still feel the red.



July 23, 2022 No comments

photo: bedroom in Arcadia, CA

lie down and flex our toes // arms stretching towards an ache, // winding and unspooling at every muscle's whim // time babbling on in the low hum of our silence

I decide I've had enough of playing Angel and scrape limbs up off the carpet to settle down beside you.

lying cheek to chest // hair splayed vaguely beside, behind, and above us // cool air settling on our skin // everywhere // but where we rest against the other

I pinch your gray shirt between my fingers rub the fabric together, and your ribcage depresses.

lain inside a wide expanse of thinly filtered light // through windows onto skin // manufactured memories // brilliantly shadowed playrooms // where we spun while the world // failing to stand still

I roll over so my arms fold beneath my chin that tries to stab your chest, and you smile with your eyes closed.

waiting for the // // tick tock // // second chances? // // when did this become a game? // // pleas(e)?

And then someone makes a noise and you cave into your smile and when you open something breaks or maybe that something is someone and maybe that someone is me. And then you muse aloud that you wish everything could stay the same.

except nothing is // blinking // anymore.

"except nothing," i // curse-(or) // inside.

except nothing // will erase // this moment.

except not // all of // us were meant be mortal.

except // us. //

// // (I liked to dream.)
July 21, 2022 No comments
photo: concrete crack in Arcadia, CA

The game plan: WE ARE GOING TO WRITE EVERY. DAY. Draft a piece every night however I need to, and then "publish" the piece on here the next morning/noon (because you girl isn't a morning person). The pieces are going to be, and I am purposely using crass language here, shitty. The worst thing you've ever read. No expectations. I'm never going to be a freaking writer if I don't write. And for Tanvi and Nelly and all of my friends who have watched Set It Up, I'm essentially clobbering myself with a pillow and declaring that I won't stop eating salsa and chips until I see this through. Lovely. Thank you for staying for my dramatics.

7/22/22 Update: I WILL GIVE MYSELF REWARDS! Reward for one week will be being able to post/story (depending on confidence level) about my favorite piece of the week :))
July 21, 2022 No comments
 photo: thrifty's mint choc chip + cotton candy icecream :))

11/8/21: "I know you don't want to hear from me, but I am selfish"


Perhaps a little lonely, too.

There is nothing quite like ping pong,
a kid made of mischief and wayward grins clicking the flashlight:

on. and off. and on and off and on.

And then staring into an abyss,
falling into the habit of trusting there will always be
another lighthouse flashing back.

Kismet. There is a witty romance in the word,
a feather light kiss and a "well met" that's stuck in your cheek.
I wish, I wish, I wish I could have my pick
of grapes on the trellis, or fruit from the orchard.

And yet, a part of me knows not to waste my Angel numbers
and lucky dimes on things that could bring me to my knees.

See, that's for selfish prayers at night. Wondering what love is,
what God is, what I am. No matter how far I go, home is the heart
in this breast, the breath in this chest.

My mom says I best well not forget it,
even as I will feel sorry for it, most days.

I will wonder if people love the moon more than the sun,
even if I know I do not.

Because the suns in the sky, the stars, even they must
want to be heard, to travel so far.

I am not bold enough to say they are envious,
but wouldn't it be something if everyone realized
even the stars get lonely too.

The fires all go cold, and all feel It creeping in
sometimes. Still they burn.


March 23, 2022 No comments

White light, dawn breaking
alongside clumsy fingers
and a rising voice.
I've known this tune before in
the heart of the boy next door.



posted on: https://writetheworld.org/?code=3bd44680-09e0-40be-81e4-a18235598cc0#/viewing-a-piece/945977

March 22, 2022 No comments
photo: dunno what tree this is... id anyone? in Arcadia, CA

As I sit on this stump and read
from these pages of your cousin's pulped flesh,
I burst with the excitement of next year seeing you draped in color,

You. master of graceful loss.

You, vessels of wasted breaths,
remind me of aching regret
and how we live despite it all.

The adults wonder while I write,
"would you rather learn to love
from a tree, or a goldfish?",

and I ask the question all week long.

Perhaps too many people say tree,
not for what you are, but for what you give.

Is it love if it is also exploitation,
the story of the taker and the fool?

My father says a child's love can never rival
that of a mother's on days when she yells
and I slam my bedroom door shut.

He is probably right.

Some others choose you for your age,
and I wonder what my grandma would say
if I loved her for simply her wrinkled soft skin, sunspotted and all.

I know she would not say much.

But she might give me dog food for dinner, which would be a shame.
Or she might cry, which would be much, much worse.

And yet the irony is that you will likely die a premature death,
your promises to the coming years cut short by a swift axe to the side.

But perhaps the most ubiquitous answer is that they love you
for what you represent-- the Earth, the shady days, your poetry,
roots clinging to the Earth as your limbs that are constantly
reaching

for the sky weigh you down.

Which might really be just to say we love you
in our image.

You, giver of future breaths,
of lazy days covered in shade,
and of fruits with juice that drip from my fingers
(the ritual that marks the start of every summer).

You, Atlas of the mountains and the sky
and of all the wondrous things that wish to crush us.

You, creature of God,
beautiful in your own right and yet zealous lover
of everything all at once--

You, Home.

We will learn to love
from You,
with You,
alongside and within,

or we learn all too quickly how to fall,
Hands burnt yellow, and orange, and red.



posted on: https://youngwritersproject.org/node/43837


February 27, 2022 No comments

Spiraling odes of love and loss,
lost pages strewn on the desk and the floor and the eyes and the sky and my limbs,
each one with a piece of myself I do not want to see anymore.

what have I created?

gaping mouths, the pages metastisize. I need to find the eye,
thread myself through the tornado. I miss,
the needle always misses, and a drop of blood puckers
at the scene of the crime.

I put it in my mouth, hiding, but then it comes again.

Revulsion in my veins, running. Throbbing,
with each pulse of my ever-beating heart.
Blooming disgust, a positive feedback loop of smoke.

A girl showed me a picture of me the other day,
and I said "ew", not because I meant it but because I felt it.

The picture was beautiful. She asked if I wanted to retake it.
I shake my head, watching as a crimson drop

stains the sky.


February 21, 2022 No comments


 

February 14, 2022 No comments

 

photo: sunrise (late to zero period CS) in Arcadia, CA

I wonder how the houseplants feel about dust
Caked in skin like a teenage girl’s first face of make-up.

I wonder how much dust we collect when we sleep,
And if our eyelids crave it every night.

My sister is lying next to me and I don’t kick her out,
And in the morning they will look at me with confused faces at the miracle.

She’s still small, yet so much bigger than she was before.
Growing is an odd thing, so easily mourned.
February 07, 2022 No comments

photo: starry sky on the way home from NorCal  

We have written thousands of poems, not too many of which said “we”.

But we love like children do, tiny hands grasping one another’s hands because even at a young age, we knew people slip faster than sand.

We wonder about our memories then. When we loved more people than the memories we had of them. We can’t remember them now, with our palms unfurled. But the water can,

And we are bodies of water, love recycled in convection currents and dropped somewhere else.

You cry, and I realize my arms are not enough to bail all the no-good, very bad, days you will ever have. I cling to you from two bedrooms down the hall as I pretend I can siphon your sorrows away and make the going not so tough.

We proffer sorry’s, and it is the way we say “I love you”. We grow bouquets of peonies, instant ramen, and sad eyes by the lost windowsills, because roses have thorns and we hurt one another enough.

January 23, 2022 No comments

 


At the time of the previous post, I meant to start posting regularly-- I really did! My late New Year's Resolution will be to post every weekend, so we'll see how I do! Since the last time I posted, which I believe was fall (maybe? pretty sure), I have been working on a new site for my creative writing class called the Ryllis Archives. 

As some of you may know, this year is my first time learning creative writing in a classroom setting (RIP orchestra...), so it was an interesting experience to learn more about poetry last semester. My teacher had us try a lot of poetic forms where we were challenged with rhyme schemes, meter, syllables, etc. Sonnets are so hard! 

In any case, feel free to check out the Ryllis Archives if you're interested! It was fun writing the afterword in particular because I got to reflect on my writing influences and how they affected my poetry during that specific period of time. I love all of the poems on the site, but have decided just to post maybe a few of them on here to avoid being redundant. 



January 22, 2022 No comments
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Message from Yours Truly

Hey, this is amaryllis :) So, if you're on here, I probably finally allowed you to read my work or this was a totally accident (happy one I hope). Either way, welcome! Also, as a reminder to those who know me-- remember that although much of it may seem like it's based off irl, some of it is fiction. Enjoy, and if you feel compelled to, I would love to see what you think in the comments!

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