Shadows grow longest when the light is lowest,
Stretching across the quiet, cold floor,
A tiny doubt, in the dimming twilight,
Casts a giant’s shape against the door.
When darkness thickens and hope grows slender,
The small fears loom like mountains steep,
Exaggerated in the subtle fading,
Guardians over the thoughts we keep.
Yet the shadow relies on the trace of brightness,
A lingering truth the heart still knows:
The height of the dark is an illusion of angle,
Not the strength of the threat that grows.
Sometimes I think.
Sometimes I feel.
Sometimes I listen.
And sometimes,
sometimes comes.
And maybe
sometimes
it's real.
The skull looks out with those cavernous eyes
My eye fell upon it this dark moonless night
What had it seen in the days when it roamed
Did it count this as home, arrive here at length
Day's sunrise no longer visits to bring it to life
What's passed before it now passes it by
Once counting for all it's now out of sight
What more can be said of these jaws clenching teeth
No lively tongue placed in that cheek turned to bone
Not a sight for the weak with no word left to say
And what of the rest of the skeleton crew
Who all did their best with what they had left
What separates them now from my contemplation
Is the flesh all that's weak... or is my spirit, too?
You swallow the words before they reach your tongue,
a quiet surrender disguised as patience.
You let the silence settle in the room,
assuming it was meant to be there all along.
The door stays shut because you never reached for the handle.
You convince yourself it’s locked,
standing on the threshold,
building a wall out of everything you refused to say.
It feels safer to stay still than to risk a falling out,
so you accept the outcome you constructed in your head—
a shadow box of scenarios where you always lose,
crafted entirely by your own doubt.
To turn away without speaking
is to sign off on the verdict yourself.
You hand over your agency to hesitation
and call it bad luck.
The distance between what is real
and what might have been
is just the silence you chose to keep,
a line you drew and never crossed.
In the end, the world only gives you
the exact emptiness you handed it,
leaving you to wonder if the answer was always no,
or if you just made it so.
'Tis another sunrise, bright and yellow.
Yet the world that holds me feels so hollow.
My ev'ry breath is but an empty cask.
Yet ev'ry step I take bears a full flask.
Ev'ry thought that I hold makes the ground quake.
Ev'ry conviction makes the wide sky break.
The path I chose remained a cracked tankard.
Yet my journey is a brimming tankard.
All certainty dissolved, and naught remains.
Each thought gives birth to thought in endless chains.
My life is but a bottle with no hole.
I am the sot who wholly lacks control.
Who am I now to stay here, bound in doubt?
To drink, to think—and still to go without?
I see that look in your eyes,
That sparkle with shine,
Asking me for something more
That I cannot provide.
I don’t want to hurt you again.
Why give you half of me
When you deserve me at my best,
And I’m just not there yet?
I want to tell you, you can trust me.
Your feelings are safe in my hands,
But I might end up letting go
And chasing after something that’ll hurt me more.
I know you’re what’s best for me if I healed,
If I stayed focused and put myself first.
I could be the man of your dreams,
Instead, I’m like any other man.
I wish I was like Atlas and could carry your load.
I’d tell you my cup is empty, but I can take more.
But I’m on the edge, with one more bad day
Enough to make me spill everything over.
Spared a change—
Spared a week, spared everything that made me weak.
Spared the week that made me weak.
Spared the people who think I am a “geek.”
Spared the light that made me weak,
From a dream that wasn’t supposed to find an end,
Because there was nothing to seek.
In my life, the king of terrors is doubt
Leaving me marks of stressed countenance-pout
Robbing the joy my heart strives to shout out
With its skeptical sneer and mocking clout.
Horrifying most, doubt breaks me apart
Attacking resilience of strong jumpstart
Letting me feel down, though I know I’m smart
With its frustrating blow and striking dart.
Behind my serene glow, doubt lurks to show
Spreading rumors of sorrow’s painful woe
Hindering winning smiles for blessings’ flow
With its gloomy news and bad tomorrow.
Against perseverance, doubt works indeed
Crushing my persistence toward fall’s breed
Stopping triumphant soar upon need’s creed
With its unbelief-seed and shame-filled greed.
Now, winning from doubt’s adversarial test
I must trust truth of best triumphant quest
Vanquishing deceit and falsity’s zest
With faith in God Who can conquer doubt’ pest.
I catch my own eyes in the bathroom mirror
before I even turn the cold water on.
I watch every quiet, hopeful plan I made
get quietly picked apart and gone.
I wear this skin, I answer to my name,
I’m the author of every doubt I hide.
I pull down my own small victories
and stand my own worst foe, inside.
When 5 a.m. hits with its pale blue light
and promises a second chance to try,
I drag out old mistakes from years ago
just to give myself a reason why.
I tell myself I am not man enough,
that every step forward is a fake,
that the moment things get steep or real
I’ll bend beneath the weight and break.
I sit at my desk in the afternoon slump,
building a maze out of unread mail.
I lock the doors, throw away the keys,
and then wonder why I’m set to fail.
I dissect every single word I said,
turning harmless moments into debt.
I don't need anyone to tear me down,
I haven't even given myself a chance yet.
And yet I'm the one who holds the pen,
the one who keeps writing out the fear.
If I'm the architect of all this noise,
I'm the only one who can clear it from here.
Self doubt, too look up dares not
Who, with dropped reins says:
" Of its trust, all, now placed in
Your hands, Lord, not mine.
Whose guide's, which holed route on is
Filled deeper, sadder.
Life's coachman's. Life's broad speaking.
Til its sun's decline."
A storm boils and simmers
It never goes away
The rumble the ligtning
The darkness
He can love you forever
He can love you in actions
He can love you in words
The storm will still build and tear you down
You need to love you
Need to give yourself kindness
You need to care for you
.... need to know you deserve it and maybe then the storm will fade.
I go down now, thinking about my life
Thinking about how it could not suffice
My greed, my boundless wants
and all of my empty flaunts.
As the endless sea pulls me down
I wonder upon my death, will anyone break down?
Were my relations honest or were they false?
I believe I'll never know, as death and I perform a waltz.
I cannot tell what waits ahead of me
but I hope it's peace and serenity.
my heart is hurting
I don't want to feel this way
when in doubt get out
Love is the balm to all ails.
AP: Honorable Mention 2026
Doubt wraps me in a fabric
of uncoated leaves
on this near treacherous eve
as my pillow rests beneath cloudbursts:
I feel distanced from the elements of earth
while stars blink dimly
these hands cannot reach..
Will forbearance come for me ;
be the thread binding me until
wind- washed air cuddles
my arms through mist
of an incandescent dew ,
If only to savor that resurrected light
in glum hours-- cycle after cycle--
and await dawn's birthing
from night's roaring, thunderous tremor:
I listen fiercely then calmly to tweets
arising through trees' sway; a glance, a gaze
tracing pulses of another cycle's turn:
It is near July, my soul feeling somewhat
ecstatic about summer's arrival-- its flavor
squeezing the juice of wild abandon;
as morning shimmers
against my feeble breath, allowing
this godly intervention of renewal
oh so miraculous...my sense of doubt
waning waning on wraps of thin air.
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