The gray sidewalk doesn't care that it is raining
It just sits there,
Letting the water fill up the cracks
Of the hardships it has endured
The water washes over the rough spots,
Trying to smooth out the bumps
From years of heavy footsteps
And hot summer days.
Now the puddles act like mirrors,
Showing the gloomy sky above,
Proving that even a broken ground
Can hold something beautiful
While underneath
The asphalt still
Tries not to break
Under pressure
My pet Harley reminds me to exercise
AP: Honorable Mention 2026
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First,
the stubborn angle of light~
wrong where it always felt right.
Then,
the floor tilts beneath your feet,
but no one else seems to notice.
Words you trusted thicken in your mouth.
The old map bleeds new rivers.
You could scream,
but instead~
you breathe.
The world reshapes itself
around that single, quiet act.
Your soul left for dead
Unsure how to live
Still breathing
Yet you feel like you’re suffocating.
You didn’t know what to do
You didn’t know how to trust.
The journey of survival was raw and painful.
Somedays you couldn’t function.
You push through the tunnel of darkness
Year after year, until it started to crack.
Cracking enough to allow the warmth of the sun to hit your face.
Crack after crack
Month after month
You learned how to live.
“Forgiveness isn’t for them, it’s for you.”
Rumi Quotes
Sponsored by: Sotto Poet
Contest Judged: 10/29/2025 1:40:00 PM
( 3rd Place )
Written: October 1, 2025
Rumi's Quote Inspired:
--"the wound is the place where the light enters you"--
I lugged silence like a stone
tucked away from all sight.
Pain etched itself into my days
and left footprints...
I could no longer claim.
Then a sliver of morning
crept into the narrow crack
inside me.
Soft as a whisper
warm as returning rain.
The mark I buried deep.
The emptiness I sidestepped…
became a threshold.
From the opening, light flowed,
calm, healing;
not to strike
but to illuminate and repair.
Its presence sank into my bones
flowing where sorrow had settled.
Turning every scar into a map
of where I had been
and where I could go.
Now I keep my chest open,
not to protect, not to perform.
But for the quiet truth
that what breaks us…
also makes room
for what saves us.
Always the world splinters—
the world breaks, fractures,
yet we lean into the cracks,
as curators, as keepers,
guardians of each other’s troubles
We gather the fragments,
hidden deals, relics, left-overs.
Embers still warm from the hearth.
Praying to self, I was near you once,
and it mattered, it burned,
it endured, it lasted, and mattered.
In the prance of happenstance
uncertain, trembling, raw, delicious,
we shuffle our scarred tokens,
knurled with abraded edges,
blurred and charred—
still radiant, still reflective, alive.
Laughter bends into mirrored halls.
Mirror on mirror aligned;
none showing the same viewpoint,
a shifting, stuttering constellation,
echoing a thousand selves
crying out together in reflection.
We are more than simply ourselves.
We are the harvest, the gathering.
We are the constellation.
A mosaic of cracks, left uncovered.
Where we let the light crawl in.
We are a threshold, an opening.
Where the light breaks in—
through the doorway
cherished as broken,
not worth fixing, nor mended.
Never broken enough,
Never done enough.
The door is broken.
Let the light come in!
along the crevices and cracks craggily creatures crawl
I saw a huge Kansas black rat snake one night last fall
Today I spied a silver skink, there might have been two
And something is wiggling right now under my shoe
My head crashes to the desk.
Flashbacks—oh, so cruel.
A hammering heart, a desperate soul,
I reach to touch you…
But you vanish.
I run to you, but you’re always faster,
Slipping away again.
“Come back,” I scream.
He says,
“No, I don’t love you… I never really did.”
Silence. I stop running.
“No… no.”
Sobs break free.
My chest feels hollow—
Not from grief,
But from the absence of it.
Not even pain wants to stay anymore.
My voice breaks, as I say—
“Please… don’t leave me.”
My body shook.
I fall again,
Not in love but in fear.
I look down, at the cracks in the floor—
So much similar to my heart.
I look up, still hoping… then regretting.
Your back was turned as you walked away.
Cracks on the walls by Adejola Joseph
Cracks on the walls
If a wall is not opened lizard cannot enter
When a friendship is not broken
There can never be a crack on the walls
Wall has ears
The king's ears at home
The king's ears in the city
That is human for you
Cracks on the walls.
She smiled,
The kind that fits
Like fine porcelain
On polished shelves.
She added the sugar,
Asked about the day,
But folded her voice
Into careful pleats.
No one noticed,
The twitch in her hand,
How the tea danced
Before the quick sips.
She laughed,
But her breath shook,
Like windows trembling
Before the wind.
Even the mirror,
Cracked behind her veil
Dared not speak
Of the quiver it caught.
She kept it hidden,
Polished with grace,
While deep beneath
The cracks grew teeth.
For grace, they say,
Is to endure unshaken.
But no one warned
How silence splinters.
How can a porcelain
Bear the aches?
Until the fine cracks
Become the shape?
Listen to this head
as it cracks in the weight of my thoughts
ants are passing all over
and I am but a corpse
running around
dragging a body today
did I have a bad day
or am I just being neurotic
or is it both.
Written: May 09, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Constance La France
Quote: "There is a loneliness more precious than life, there is a freedom more precious than the world." By Rumi
****************
The frosty night breeze embraces me tight,
Such as a moth-eaten shield, enticing flight.
Bitter rain lashes against the sidewalk face,
Delicate drops pirouette, each finding its place.
Visions flicker by in headlight, fleeting beams,
Love's echoes glimmer akin to vanished dreams.
How jaded lovers lose spark, turning strangers,
Specters in their home, now cloaked in danger.
Foreign dialects speak in words we once knew,
Widening cracks claim seismic shifts through.
Still, optimism clings as I traverse the city chill,
Dreams still nudge that love may cure what is ill.
Silent tears trace paths down my weary skin,
Longing for dawn light, for a raw start within.
As the sun rises, distances wantonly wane,
As rainfall fuels flowers, may our link heal again.
i keep
a teacup with a cracked rim—
it doesn’t hold warmth for long
but i drink from it anyway.
the hallway light flickers
like it’s unsure
if it wants to stay on.
some nights,
i understand.
there’s a coat in the closet
that no one wears,
but i leave it hanging.
the walls don’t echo
when i speak softly.
so i don’t.
not anymore.
i fold myself into
the quiet corners of things—
pillows, playlists,
people who ask how i’m doing
but not why.
New cracks in old stone
Just beginning to show,
Reveals things never shown
Things only one could know
Just beginning to show
A solid surface scrambles,
Things only one could know
Shedding into shambles
A solid surface scrambles
Every chisel brings a change,
Shedding into shambles
In time, it must arrange
Every chisel brings a change
Upon hard - headed rock,
In time, it must arrange
For none can beat the clock
Upon hard - headed rock
Reveals things never shown,
For none can beat the clock
New cracks in old stone.
Ice can crack easily.
With just a thought of death.
Underneath there is nothing.
There is no noise.
Underneath.
There is no frigid water.
Or anything living.
Ice can crack silently.
Carefully moving.
Or standing still.
In the middle of the lake.
Laughing.
That’s enough!
The ice cracks.
Ice can crack gracefully.
For no reason at all.
Underneath contains my simple thoughts and ideas.
Ice can be scary and cold.
Yet protects us all.
From underneath.
From nothing.
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