Category: 2022-23 Submissions

A fierce breeze with leaves
The powerful surge of storm
Calling the strong-willed

Soft summer rain brings
Sweet flowers that float gently
On the creek’s water

Cuando lloro, es en silencio
Si mi mundo se esta destruyendo, lo apago
Pero el cariño, Jamas se demuestra.
Me dijo Mi mama “porque lloras si nadien se murio”
Lo que no sabe es que la mitad de mi se apago y ya esta enterada en un sepultorio.
Jamas muestres tus sentimentos verdaderos, La gente se aprovechara de ti.
No seas vulenrable me dijeron mis padres mexicanos.

What is the world?
It’s a question that’s been asked…maybe once or twice.
It’s a neverending belief of…
What’s wrong and what’s right.
Ask it.
Where does it lead us?
Into the bedroom of a small child.
Alone.
Mentally Alone.
She was told it was in her head.
They would never stop loving her.

What happens when the hourglass stops?
The final grain hitting the pile?
It’s not forever,
Is it?

She becomes older,
Changing.
She convinced herself crying is for weaklings,
Cowards.
But she still does it,
Sometimes.
All these years with the yelling, the mental abuse…
Has left her believing there is no love.

Why have beliefs led you astray?
The very mention of hope sends you reeling?
It’s not forever, right?
Right?

In a future that hasn’t happened,
A change becomes a part of her.
There is still no love.
She is better, but when no one can be perfect,
How can she?
She is using her talents of listening to help others,
But she feels as if she isn’t good enough.
She’s Not, but no one can be.

This is a story of the world,
Born to a place of fear and terror.
This is a story that is true,
Not sugarcoated in a “Happily Ever After.”
This is a story of life, not how to do it,
Vivere.

We speak;
Vestiges of a thousand nights.
Cast through overbearing shoulders,
Proclaiming Eternal Life; Eternal Life.
Yet they fell;
Nine days like the Bronze anvil;
Nine days to home.

One path followed;
The Twelve Gates of Night.
Follow the Dog, come to claim one’s soul.
Either that or live near eternally,
In a place destined for destruction.
We are destined to remember our flaws,
Destined to be amiss.

They speak;
Just as We once did,
We were once upon You.
But now you’ve come,
On your own Will;
On your own will,
You’ve come.

Now We shall wait for others;
Like We have always done.
Forever and Almost Recessive,
We watch.
We will always watch,
Till the End of time.
We have always watched,
Waiting for you,
For You.

A skull upon a coffin,
A dead heart on a sleeve,
We are neverending;
We will never leave.
And We are:

We, the bones that are here, await Yours.
We are:

Memento Mori.

Eternity is for Forever,
That’s what we were told.
Then why was she abandoned,
Left to thrive in the cold?

She never gave a doubt that he,
Would return and bring her home.
But as the years reflected by;
She felt buried in the loam.

Yet every morning she woke up,
And looked within the mirror,
“He said that he would come again,
And take me away from here!”

“He said that he would never again,
Except me for…Eternity!”
She thought he meant Forever,
But she could never see;
Hope believes what happens never,
For Eternity is not Forever.

A clash; a clash,
My heart relishing in the stale smell of fear…
An endless cycle of vengeance and loss,
Who would want this?
I would.

A toppled throne,
My city divided,
Civil war is undecided.
Who would want this?
I would.

Laugh in foes’ faces,
As I take my place;
I decide the kingdom’s fate.
Who would want this?
I would.

Fire takes the palace.
My army against me;
Leading toward my resting place.
Who would want this?

I would.

Dew-drops on cattails,
And starry floors at night,
Soft breeze and ripples,
Under the moon, so bright.

Tales of imperfection,
A woman in the clouds.
Watching over waters,
Shepherding the crowds.

She is a beauty,
However alone…
Her glory never wavers,
Her light always shone.

Dreams are usurped,
Stories are broken,
Yet she watches all,
None favored with her token.

The day may end,
As man is unsurprising,
Now she watches her reflection
For now, it’s moon rising.

She stands on the golden cliffs,
Waiting
Love is fleeting in her time,
So she breathes her last breath,
And then some.

He rides home after a war of tyrannical rule,
Hopeless
Countless deaths fill his head,
As he remembers fallen friends and foes,
And then some.

He sits in his home, alone,
Crying
His love left him some time ago,
For he hurt her in more ways than one,
And then some.

She is broken, by anguish,
Joyless
She stands, the only one in the field,
Never to feel again,
And then some.

Their harmonies are broken,
Wretched
A red string broken in two,
Dead and dark forever remain,
And then some.

The way I see it
Is dreams and light,
Through patterns of stars fully lit and bright;
Unable to imagine with our powers of sight.

Like the blind soldier,
With vision anew,
It captures a silence too cold to be true.
The very beginnings are shown to so few.

Why would the bitter winds of Winter revel in such fate?
When secrets unearthed reveal to be lost,
And all shred of hope is covered in frost…
At the very least…what is the cost?

But past that avowal,
What more to confess?
Through shimmering curtains with power of best,
To planets unknown for us to conquest.

With skies dappled purple,
When oceans stand still,
Worlds seem to bend with only a will,
And time stands unmoving to capture our fill…

But the way I see it,
It is you and I,
In a perfect world where no man can die.
This blissful peace, alone to commit,
A silent world…a way to see it.