There’s an emptiness inside me
That makes me hollow
But takes up space.
It crushes me internally,
Takes away my hunger
And doesn’t let me breathe.
I have to force my lungs
To take in the air
Like I’m mouth-feeding my inner child.
But all I take in
Is pain
that keeps me empty.
But then I find you again.
I feel your presence,
Even though we don’t belong
To each-other anymore
And I feel the colors
of your soul,
Even tho you don’t want me
Around anymore.
And then You look at me
Like I have never held you
And You speak to me
Like I’ve never heard you sing
And that pain fills me
But at least I’m not hollow
Anymore.
I don't love you anymore.
Is it a lie? Who knows?
The truth is,
we don't pluck the flowers we adore.
So I say,
"I don't love you anymore."
I keep waiting at your door.
Not because I expect you to open it,
but because leaving
would feel more like goodbye.
So I say,
"I don't love you anymore."
I tell everyone
I've forgotten you.
Maybe one day
I'll believe it too.
"I don't love you anymore,"
I whisper,
standing at the seashore.
He doesn’t care how I feel,
As long as he’s okay,
He ups and leaves,
When he doesn’t get his own way,
He turns everything into a huge deal,
When it doesn’t need to be,
Working himself up,
Then being really mean,
I made plans for his birthday,
So he could be free,
But since he learned of them,
He just seems to hate me,
He would rather be anywhere else,
Not with me,
Everyday brings another excuse,
For him to pack his stuff and leave,
I told him I’m lonely,
He doesn’t seem to care,
And when I talk about how I feel,
I’m met with a blank stare,
Honestly I’m sad,
A feeling so poor,
But is it so bad,
That I don’t think he loves me anymore?
She wore the mask for so long,
That she forgot what it was hiding.
At first, it was a shield,
A way to protect herself from the world,
But over time,
The mask became her face.
The smile, the laugh,
The things she used to wear on the outside
Now lived on the inside.
But one day,
she looked in the mirror,
And she didn’t recognize herself.
she couldn’t remember
What her real face looked like,
What she used to sound like,
Before she became someone else’s idea of who she should be.
And she realized,
She'd been hiding for so long,
She forgot what she was hiding from.
I can't live alone anymore
Because it is sad and lonely
We both get along very well
Yes I am aging very year
People say that I am more handsome
Now
Than I was In my young years
I am now in my senior years
Thanks to you
I am alive every day
And I don't min living
My life
That you gave to me
I don't a live a luxurious life
I live a simple life
That I love very much
And I am a loving and caring man
I don't have much money to live
That is fine with me
I can’t do this anymore
I’m going insane
I can’t even think right
There’s joy and there’s pain.
So many emotions
That are so damn contradicting,
Each day was so amazing,
But now it’s so predicting.
It’s like a roller coaster
emotions running high,
and then all of the sudden
I can’r enjoy the ride.
At times you mean the world to me
When you act like you care,
`but other times you don’t mean
cuz you ain’t even there.
If you really did love me,
like you alway say you do,
I wouldn’t be asking myself
what I really mean to you.
I act like i don’t care.
but i ain’t that tough,
Iv’e been faithful and true
but i guess it that’s not enough.
Lame excuses don't cut it.
Takes more than flowers to impress me.
Man up ~ say you're sorry.
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2026
I don't believe in love anymore,
I don't believe in romance and staying
I believe in eyes that hold deceit
and fingertips that trace my skin like tongues full of critique.
I believe in the fire of lust and coveting a trusting heart to conquer
I believe in shifting loyalties and fading desires but more so,
I don't believe in love any longer.
Christians aren’t so Christian now—
The Cross is strangely Light—
It weighs no more than Fashion’s thread
Or Vapor in the Night—
They speak His Name as one would coin
To purchase earthly Gain—
And barter Mercy at the Door
For Certain of Pain—
The Hymns are tuned to Vanity,
The Prayers to public View—
The Poor still knock with wounded Hands—
Unanswered—at their doors—
Once Faith was stitched with trembling Thread
In quiet rooms of Dust—
Where no Applause disturbed the Knees
That bent because they must—
Now Judgment lifts a Scarlet flag
Where Love once kept her Tent—
And Stones are cast with Scripture’s weight
But none with Tears are sent—
If Christ should walk these pews today
In borrowed Flesh and Breath,
They’d ask His Politics before
They asked Him about Death—
Yet still a Sparrow dares to sing
Above the Market’s Roar—
And God remains where God has been—
Behind the slammed Front Door—
For Faith is not the Noise it makes,
Nor Banners, nor the Crowd—
It is the unseen breaking Heart
That dares to whisper Loud.
You thought you really rose above it all,
Until you realized it is for me you will fall.
You think you're always so above it all,
But I'll be here to catch you when you fall.
You like to stand as if you are so tall,
But I shall hold your hand through it all.
Your tower of solitude was for so long so tall,
But my love for you breaks down every wall.
You say you'll never let yourself feel small,
But I see through to you, I see through it all.
You once thought my thinking as so small,
Until I let you past my own emotional wall.
You thought in terms of love you lost it all,
So I showed you true love without any stall.
I will always stand with you through it all,
So always remember our love is not small.
I can't reason my sadness today
I find it overwhelming
Diverting my attention
doesn't offer great help
I try hard to laugh
but I fear I might break down
Something in me is uneasy
Something keeps shattering
Hopes have repeatedly broken
Efforts have turned futile
the world's point of view
doesn't match mine
I might have run miles
but none in their eyes
Something in me fails everyday
Something feels broken
Backups are now priorities
Pointless things feel logical
I'd appreciate being left
alone for endless hours
but I fear losing everyone
I should be grateful for
Something in me is unsettling
Something feels lost
The multitudinous clenches of despair joust intermittently.
Make it hurt.
No witnesses. No empathy. Nor apathy. My stagnation.
The question of purposefulness has the inconsequential ringing of tinnitus banging in my noggin.
Who to bear witness?
Beyond “you,” I suppose...
Thou nameless, faceless, formless and ing omnipresent
God? Given my luck...
Crawling and flowing in my body - more so than my own blood - though never foreign. A homogenous mixture “we” are.
Invasive “you” are not.
Permeating and crushing my existence.
Not of me but never foreign, never.
“You” to bear witness.
My brain rackles with any and all manifestations of grief. How predictable.
Where are “you?”
Inside and outside and inside out and outside out - never foreign.
Take my life then.
Be not afraid. Take my life.
Make this invitation to a new aspiration of my decimation my proclamation.
The after-thought of symbolization, of matter, of merit-
Take my life
I am tired - tired - tired of this rigamaroo
Take my life. Take my breath.
“YOU!”
GIVE. IT. MEANING.
I like nature;
it is calm.
It has its truth
that I want.
The truth I search for in every soul,
not the masks I get to see
but the hidden faces I want to know.
I once had a mask.
It feeds you lies to keep it alive.
But being alive doesn’t matter
if it hunts you down
and burns your soul on the inside.
Because you think the outside
wears a disguise,
but with the clock ticking
it shows your cries —
shows the world how helpless you are,
and then the mask doesn’t help you at all.
So be like nature,
be its calm.
Grow yourself how you want.
Find the people who love the truth
and show you, with every heartbeat,
their love for you.
i tried to end it all last night
i failed, obviously
it's so crazy to me how life goes on
when it almost didn't
i talked to my friends today
laughed with them
smiled as if everything was normal
but i doubt they could tell anything was off
i even hung out with a friend
and i love to hang out with her but
i spent most of our time
just wishing maybe she'd notice
see how lifeless my eyes are
see how yet another part of me is gone
just like the last time
and the time before that
but she didn't notice
nobody ever notices
but that's okay, i know they have their own struggles too
i try to always be there for them
even when i'm not there for myself
it's easier that way
to fix people's problems instead of my own
i'd rather sit back and let my life crash and burn
than confront them
but i'd be lying if i said i didn't want someone to see
i won't tell them on my own
i'll tell them if they ask
they don't ask, no matter how many times i ask them
so instead i'll suffer in silence
mostly silent, besides writing these
until someone finally notices
or i can finally succeed
Once I learned I’d have to pay for my sins
Today I see there’s not a sin that’s not ‘in’
Once I was told to respect every teacher
Today a teacher’s the lowest of creatures
Once the US flag was a source of pride
Today it only serves to divide
Once girls admired a ‘man in uniform’
Today they seek out ‘singular unicorns’
Once teens practiced ‘making conversation’
Today they can’t talk, they’re texting sensations...
Did everything die; is nothing sacred anymore
Well, kids still ask parents for money
~ only today a whole lot more
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