Thank you to everyone who submitted poems for the contest, they were all fun to read! We would like to congratulate our winning poets Chy Campbell with first, Daniel Miller with second, and a tie for third from Lanie Gehner and Klaytin Jenkins. Enjoy reading the winning poems below.
“Create Me”
1st place winner Chy Campbell
I feel as though I’m choking
on everyone that I am supposed to be,
and I’ve let the person I am drown
in others expectations and “needs”.
but it’s not all their fault, because I let it happen.
I made myself too moldable.
The more shapes their hands force me into,
the harder it is for me to remember my original form.
My colors have rubbed off onto the palms of their hands,
and they carry them away. leaving me
with nothing but slowly hardening clay.
Until someone fresh comes along with their pale, wet hands
to make me into someone new again.
“Why Did Man”
2nd place winner Daniel Miller
Defended cruel means to your ends
Atrocities committed.
Genocidal maniacs
The truth you have forbidden
A good reason you have none
To aid your flawed stances
Pushing your ideals
On those you have deemed lesser
No reason to your madness
A murder here and there
“That’s just how the world spins”
You say in ignorance or spite
Why would you kill children
Or animals in plight
You say the world has done you worse
But you have hit it harder
Plants and animals
The butt of your cruel joke
Do you have a reason to what others can think
Or are your reasons better
Because you killed all others
Don’t you think it’s flawed
To kill the competition
When the other side block your twisted inhibitions
Is it your right provided by your god
after all, there are so many
Why does yours hold the light
Who said your philosophy beats any other man
After all you only arrived to yours when one was proven wrong
The victor is the mentor
The holder of the light
As long as you won conflict
All will claim you right
There is no defense for you
No resting in the light
For atrocities committed
You will suffer plight
Some will say you’re wrong
Others say you’re right
Take no solace
You’ve no right to celebrate
Life will only be made right
When you are in the grave
So take in the sights of here and now
For they may be your last
The world may be against you
Only you will stand with you
And as your world comes to an end
The last of you removed
When the wilds reclaim it
Not a soul will miss you
Your traces of existence
Will soon disappear
Just as any notion
Of all that you hold dear
The plants will overtake your world
All life in harmony
Though they are still cruel with their means of survival
They will all have silent rejoice
For they are victorious
For they have survived the evil, human, machine.
“To a Man”
2nd place winner Daniel Miller
To beat you down the Earth attempt
Dragging you within
Meteors, famine disease may try
To put you in a coffin
Leave the world, it’s worse
No air to move or breathe.
But don’t you know against all chance
You’ve risen above it all
The world attempts with near, near glance
But you are standing tall
To leave the world you someday might
Sadness in your eyes
But know, you grand creature
You have left your mark.
“A Smile from the Sun”
3rd place winner Lanie Gehner
If I harnessed the warmth in the sun,
I wouldn’t find joy
And I don’t believe
Happiness is a choice
There is no hope
Among the rainy days
I’d be lying if I said that
A smile can change a day
(Now read backwards)
“Evolving”
3rd place winner Klaytin Jenkins
All I have ever wanted was for you to love me as much as I love myself.
Though it wasn’t true,
you said you loved me more than one’s self.
You make me stupid, sad, and alone.
You’ll never love me the ways that I do love you.
And that’s all fine- I’m completely fine
Though I will miss you,
even if you were never mine.
You will always be in my head as I will be in your mind.
But in your mind, I will be a disappear as a disappointment.
You hated the way I talked,
the way I tried to make you proud.
So, I’m tired and gone just as you wished all those years ago.
I’m sorry I’m not who you wanted.
could never be your son.
But in my head, you will be the man that made me hate who I am,
But love who I’ve become.
“Passion”
honorable mention, Kora Doolan
It pulses through your veins,
an unstoppable current that drives you forward.
Without it—
we are nothing more than hollow vessels,
living in a world of gray.
Without it,
we exist—
but do not live.
Passion breathes life into the small things,
a glance,
a gesture,
the air before a storm.
It is the fire that keeps us warm,
the hand that reaches for the unreachable,
the force that propels us to rise
again and again.
