I can tell you're hurting.
Your random thoughts are mismatched puzzle pieces.
I wish I could help.
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: 3rd place 2026
i always feel so stupid
why’d i ignore all the lies?
all the girls and all the times
they warned me about you
i shouldn’t fall for you
i think about you all the time
if out of sight is out of mind
you’re always hidden in plain sight
you make me such a fool
how’d you make me fall for you?
my friends try to warn me about you
i hate i ignore them too
and every girl out there knows best
why can’t i just think like them?
why’d you make me fall for you?
Been frustrated for too long.
Bitterness builds like a vile crust.
Forgotten the whats and whys.
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2026
I run in circles all day long
doing a heap of chores and
getting things done
but I'll tell you what I truly find exhausting.
It's the waiting and not knowing,
it sets me back and slows me down.
It frustrates me to the bitter end.
Instead of multitasking
I end up multimasking
juggling and pretending
to be the patient person
that I'm really not.
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
In moonlight's hush, beneath the elm,
A masked marauder stalks his realm.
With paws like whispers, eyes like coal,
He seeks the prize that fills his soul.
But lo! The bin—his ancient foe—
Stands smug, unyielding, sealed in woe.
Its lid, a tyrant, cold and tight,
Dares mock his hunger in the night.
"Have you forgotten?" he snarls with grace,
"The feast we shared, the sacred place?
You fed me once, you knew my name,
Now plastic locks deny my claim."
He leaps! He claws! A ballet grim,
A pirouette on garbage rim.
Banana peels and coffee grounds
Rain down like war drums' hollow sounds.
Neighbors wake to chaos born,
A furry tempest, rage and scorn.
Yet in his heart, a deeper ache—
Not trash, but trust, was theirs to break.
So if you see him, tail askew,
A poet wrapped in dumpster dew,
Know vengeance drives his nightly plan—
The raccoon scorned by a trash can.
Once upon a dreary time
A boy set out to note a rhyme
Pen in hand with paper lined
Prepared he was to share his mind
But thoughts lay barren and confined
Without sense, reason, or rhyme
Suffered he did this weary time
Both his soul and cheerless mind
His eyes grew dark, his face grew lined
And tho he sought to redesign
Something, anything it need not be fine
But the words would not align
And in his room he did confine
To seek and pray for some sweet sign
For the intercession of the divine
To show, to prove verse sublime
But chaos reigned and nothing aligned
And so he collapsed under weight of his crime
Chained by shackles of his own design
Weeping tears by misery primed
The poet thus became the sad mime.
How much I miss you/
Words can not explain/
You're so far away from me/
I have to close my eyes/
And reach into my mind/
To bring you forth/
To wrap my arms around you/
To show you how much I miss you/
Life makes me lonely/
I truly miss you/
Everytime I see your face/
The sun shines down on me/
Which makes me/
Miss you more than ever/
Can you see or feel my sorrow/
Even though you're/
Not in my life anymore/
I will always miss you/
Oh.../
Why did you all abandon me/
I never done the crime/
But I don't think I need your pity/
In life/
We find out the hard way/
Who our true friends are/
You would think mind escape/
Was an easy thing to do/
Soon to find out/
It's the total opposite/
Trying to do so/
Just makes it harder/
Living in isolation for years/
Just drains the soul and mind/
To be stripped of contact/
Will turn you into a beast/
They have created with hate/
And when the time comes/
They don't know what to do with you/
Becoming a pawn in a chess game/
Always messing with you/
So, your mind is unable to be at ease/
It's hard to keep/
The mind busy all the time/
The brain's true friend/
Is something written in words/
Helps refresh the brain and soul/
Mind escape to fly away/
So you don't have to deal with hard times/
My books, music and poems/
Is my mind escape/
Because nobody cares/
Life is like a chess game/
Sometimes I feel like/
The isolation/
Is getting the best of me/
Losing touch with reality/
Life has never been kind/
No matter what you do/
There will always be haters/
In the woods/
Struggling through the trenches/
From day one/
Educated on the bricks/
Some call it street smarts/
Everyone has their limits/
Most of us on the inside/
Have pushed the limits/
To the fullest/
Living in isolation, solitary and reclused/
Drifting in space/
Nobody cares/
Dwelling on what happened,
Regretting that I never/
Lived or had a life/
Life Reflecting/
The endless possibilities/
Of trust issues begin with only/
One trust to be broken or betrayed/
Promises made, confessions of love/
Relationships gone wrong/
One seed of deceit/
Grows into a tree of hate/
Eyes only seeing deception/
That may or may not be there/
Trust alone can make one/
Believe in forever/
And love will prevail above all/
One misdeed, a broken promise/
So many false words/
Covered with a silver tongue/
A hint of doubt/
One action big or small/
Makes no difference/
Given a chance, it will consume thoughts/
Dominating the ability to think/
Straight, causing wrecks/
Of every kind/
Something that hangs in the/
Balance of our life/
In this life or death/
Trust issues will either/
Make you or break you/
Everyone throws trash/
To the garbage/
How can a person feel/
Like a piece of trash/
When they are always feeling/
Used up and unwanted/
Garbage is beneath us/
To stomp on in life/
People go through life/
Treating us as trash/
Looked down upon/
Garbage thrown in our faces/
Like we are not worth it/
Or anything else in this world/
Which becomes cruel to us/
Feeling like a dump/
For everyone to unload/
Their garbage on top of us/
Always struggling to climb out of it/
A heavy burden on the shoulders/
To assume we deserve nothing/
We are the lowest people in life/
And, in other's eyes/
We are nothing but garbage/
The brand new cat manicurist was having a fit
Her latest client was impossible, her name Miss DeWitt
DeWitt would retract her half-polished claws at a crucial time
Making even coverage impossible for Miss Manicurist Mime.
Could you please leave the claws out? MMM asked politely.
But Miss DeWitt was a mean kitty, so her nails remained unsightly.
Why is it easy for others to sleep
At a single moment's notice
But my eyes remain wide and fixed
As if I'm under hypnosis
Why is it I can never doze
While others so readily collapse
Even though completely shot
My mind refuses to relax
Wouldn't my drained muscles
That desperately seek healing
Be better off rejuvenating
Instead of me staring at the ceiling
Why can't I drift away
And assume my place in a daze
Drifting and floating endlessly
In beautiful lethargic malaise
What's the trick to make me fall
Into an utterly tranquil abyss
So I can preserve my own sanity
With therapeutic bliss
(c) Theneverendingstory.net
Lead point scratching
Pink eraser scrubbing,
Ticking time catching
My eyes, I'm rubbing
Inspiration sparing
Rhyme and word fighting,
White lines staring
Thumb and finger writing
Yellow #2 shrinking
Lines ever darkening,
My eyelids blinking
My mind harkening
Hours ever zooming
Crumpled paper piling,
Good enough is looming
I find myself smiling.
The llama has a name that everybody mispronounces.
"The double 'll', it sounds like 'y'," he patiently announces.
"The single 'l', it sounds like 'l'," proceeds his dissertation,
"And a 'lama' is a holy man of Tibetan derivation.
But what I cannot understand," says he,
"Is why it's not left up to me
To solve a problem that's become the worst case
Of mispronunciation in the history of creation,
And spell it 'yama', like it sounds, in the first place!"
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