beacon of light dimmed
broken windows from past storms
leaves it ghostly
The draft-dodgers who fled and even more
Deserters who abandoned their posts
These are the real heroes of war
They’ve paid their personal costs
Their names will never be known
No obelisks will be erected
Their very existence will be forlorn
Otherwise scorned and rejected
They knew they would be slandered
But by saving their own lives,
They gave the answer to their offenders
Let’s flee, despite of being despised
It’s a senseless slaughter for false ideals
Of politicians with high morality
To whom people’s lives aren’t a big deal
Who dream about their own immortality
Let their faithful armchair analysts snap
They never fight wars only talk a lot
Patriotism fits well with a nap
One snore away from the hot spot.
This garden’s neglected, the grass grew too tall
The bushes and plants look half-dried
Cracked slabs lay uneven, the dog’s water bowl
Is covered with leaves and dead flies
Front door’s off the latch, windows wide open
No photos in frames on the mantelpiece
A phone on the table must’ve been broken
Unlikely it held fingerprints
Wormwood and ivy have grown way too large
Almost conceal the brick walls
Everything seems like completely discharged
Unavailable to any calls
Was it the other day I saw you there?
When was the last time we met?
Tomorrow can’t come, cause it’s busy somewhere
No time for tea can be set.
rust climbs silent spine of forgotten rails
the yard waits for a whistle
that will never be heard.
She sits in the marrow of the
quiet house,
stirring cappuccino coffee unit it
grows cold under her
thumb.
His closet door stands wide,
an open throat
exhaling the faint, stolen
scent of cedar and old wool,
while across town, his keys
clink on a different kitchen
counter.
She watches the dust motes
drift through the heavy
shafts of afternoon light,
each one a tiny, forgotten
universe slowing down to
die,
trapped inside the stillness
he left behind when he
chose a younger woman.
The telegraph has forgotten
how to ring, so she speaks
only to the walls,
her voice a thin scraping of
dry leaves against the
floorboards.
She does not wash the
mirror because her own
eyes look back like
strangers,
hollowed out by the shadow
of the woman who took her
place.
When darkness falls, she
wraps herself in the heavy
quilt of her own grief,
listening to the house creak
and settle into its permanent
isolation.
She closes her eyes not to
sleep, but disappear,
wishing the night would
swallow the remainder of her name.
You left ~ I never felt so abandoned
AP: Honorable Mention 2026
When the State disappeared,
silence took command of the roads.
Villages slept with one eye open,
listening for engines, boots, and gunfire.
Markets that once sang with bargaining voices
now whisper in fear,
and children learn the language of hiding
before they learn to write their names.
Into the vacuum stepped shadows—
men without mercy,
flags without compassion,
laws written in bullets and ash.
Farmers abandoned their fields,
traders counted losses instead of profits,
and mothers prayed for sons
who should have returned at sunset.
Where protection failed,
terror planted its own authority;
where governance weakened,
fear became the new governor.
Yet the land remembers peace.
The soil still waits for laughter,
for schools instead of camps,
for soldiers of justice, not soldiers of terror.
And one day,
when the State returns not in uniforms alone
but in fairness, protection, and hope,
the people will reclaim their nights.
Until then, the wind carries one question
across northern plains and burning towns:
Who guards the people
when the guardians vanish?
Marooned, where's a friend?
Too blind to notice what's before me.
Left behind in a land that's unkind.
Only to question. Where is the legacy?
I'll find it, marooned, forgotten
buried deep inside the walls
of a grandfather clock.
Chiming its way through the years
with no one knowing
the secret that sleeps inside.
Where is my legacy?
It's marooned and forgotten.
*WEJS*
*The Musings of a Mind on the Edge*
When you left, dreams tripped my hopes forming
bruised knots tightly cinched on my heart.
Oh! The ambience.
Creepy enough to make a child
cry for its mother.
The dark night, a sky pitched black,
billion fireflies and no moon.
Lying on a grass carpet,
I kept gazing.
My hands then
shivered, mind enraged;
chaos echoed, bursting it,
aiding an end.
Thus comes the nightmare.
Dreams seemed a distant delight,
delight now experienced by
a folk unknown.
My cold feet yearn for the warmth
of a fairy, once acquainted.
I urged, shed the last dried tear.
My possessions lack
a little…
Make me feel alive, muse.
Though I am gone,
bestow a heartbeat again...
An embrace before my final breath.
I am not the poet
to keep me in your thoughts.
I am a spirit
who picked up the pen.
Now, I break the quill.
Before his virgin eyes, she was made whole.
There, secret makes transparency the goal-
For pain to learn of gain's worth,
With regards to value's birth
In respect to caring such daring soul.
ABANDONED IN WETNESS
Cold rain fell today:-
The sun just stood there watching:
Leaving us likewise:-
My head is blue and green,
But only underneath,
Outside I’m like a rainbow,
Full of hope, bliss, and peace,
But even they are see-through,
Don’t look too hard.
I can feel them slowly fading,
Further and further away,
Should I try to stop them?
Or should I let them keep on going, going, going?
Trailing far behind them,
Without me, they have more fun,
I’m left to just watch
And feel like a boulder in the way
Of their passage to freedom.
You never compliment me
Or ask me how I’m doing,
But what would be the point if you did,
I’d only lie and say “I’m fine”
The traveler stands alone,
a trespasser in dust and rot,
and then the sounds begin.
not rain,
not time's heavy sigh,
but a persistent,
liquid malice striking a rusty pot
somewhere in the black gut of the house.
Drip
A tiny bullet of sound fired into the deep quiet.
Drip
The sound
a tiny hammer
on the anvil of silence,
chipping away at the night.
Drip
An unwelcome guest,
insistent
monotonous
filling the vast emptiness
with its small, steady rhythm.
Drip
Each drop a moment passing,
marked by the sound
in the dark heart of the night
Dragonfruit
One year I got dragonfruit
For my birthday
It was so pretty and pink
When Daddy opened it up
It was empty
Translucent membrane
Full of hard black seeds
When I took a bite
It was tasteless in the middle
With black seeds of hate
Daddy loved me like dragonfruit
Flashy and vibrant on the outside
Tasteless in the middle
With black seeds of hate
And pain
But every once in a while
If you cut the fruit in half
And look it in the eyes
Scoop out the very center
It is faintly sweet
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