A quiet shadow falls across the floor,
Where solitude keeps watch beside the door.
The world moves on in steady, distant grace,
While time stands still within this empty space.
A deep desire lingers in the chest,
To hear the echo of a welcome song,
Yet cut away from all the humming rest,
We wander blindly where we don't belong.
The windowpane is frosted cold and dim,
As shadows lengthen on the outer rim.
We sit apart, introspective and deep,
Guarding the secrets that the quiet keep.
So vulnerable, exposed to sudden harm,
Reaching in vain for any gentle arm,
Until the silence claims its final toll—
A deep isolation that engulfs the soul.
Yet still a quiet yearning lingers best:
An aching hunger for connection, peace, and rest.
I'll give you an idea of what I'm thinking
let you into my darkest room
I'll hold your hand just to comfort
peel your eyes you'll see soon
in the silence of the night
sitting all on my own
I offer myself help
and try lighten the gloom
Talking to myself
stacking thoughts on a shelf
in a darkened room
only light is my screen
in a darkened room
I 'm allowed to dream
In my mind I'm a superstar
been around the world
In my mind I'm superior
my flag has been unfurled
my dreams are ghosts in the dark
and they are haunting me
I'm still building a Noah's ark
and filling with my fantasies
Nothing outside these four walls
in my tiny prison cell
the world doesn't exist, thank god
so glad I'm on my own
In my darkened room
Please, spare yourself the effort of proving your love to me -
I promise it will never reach me,
though I wish with all my soul it could.
No matter how vast or profound your devotion,
I am a fortress that cannot be breached;
I am utterly incapable of receiving, believing, or feeling it.
I myself love so deeply - so agonizingly deeply -
and I ache to feel that same warmth returned.
But do not waste your breath on reassurances.
Do not try to convince me.
I am condemned to never, ever know it.
Look at me.
Am I truly a monster?
Have I finally grown into the skin of my tormentors?
Peer beneath the veil of my eyes and tell me you do not see
the demons nesting in the ruins of my mind,
governing my thoughts and dictating my every breath.
I harbor no desire to replicate the sins of those who shattered me,
nor to harvest the lives of others the way my own was so savagely reaped.
I am entirely unworthy of devotion; I seek no affection,
wishing only to bleed out whatever love I have left until I am empty.
Waste no tears on this calcified shell.
Bestow your grace upon those who can still be saved,
and never dare to seek a soul within my chest.
Do nothing for my sake.
Utterly abandon the notion of my redemption.
To love a monster is an act of absolute martyrdom -
you will only be ground into dust, piece by piece,
until nothing remains but the wreckage.
I've spread my blanket on the ground beside
the trunk of a majestic willow tree.
I relish how its long, green, wispy leaves,
which almost touch the ground, envelop me.
I watch them swaying in the gentle breeze
as I sit--silent, lost in pensive thought.
As one who feels that solitude can lead
to peace, I've found the perfect spot I sought.
I brought my pen and paper just in case . . .
but suddenly I’m nodding and my eyes
are closing. For a little while, I'll sleep.
Perhaps I’ll write a poem when I rise.
My knuckles are raw from the cold subway pole,
and the guy next to me smells like damp wool and cheap coffee.
He’s staring at a cracked phone screen,
his thumb scrolling past headlines, dinners, divorces.
We don’t talk.
Nobody talks here.
But under his heavy black winter coat,
somewhere behind his lint-covered tie,
a small fist of muscle is slamming against his ribs.
Thump.
It’s a clumsy, desperate noise,
like an old radiator knocking in a basement.
It keeps time against the black tunnel outside the window,
a persistent thudding negotiation with the dark
that just asks for enough time to get to Tuesday.
We walk around pretending we own the sidewalk,
worrying about the rent, the teeth that need fixing,
the text message left on "read."
Every wet breath is a lease renewal
signed in the dark without our permission.
I look at the girl across from me,
her eyeliner smudged from a long shift.
Her chest rises.
The cold world looks the other way,
indifferent,
and lets her have another minute to figure it out.
It’s not a grand design.
It's just a truce.
A messy, fragile truce,
kept alive by a pound of red meat
stubbornly refusing to stop hitting the wall.
The walls are closing in.
People walk on by without seeing me.
They talk right through me.
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: 3rd place 2026
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.
I fear people for two main reasons:
the damage they are capable of inflicting,
and the damage they are capable of exposing.
The Pious Wolf of the Parish
The candles in the parish hall sputtered, casting long, monstrous shadows against the stone walls. There sat Abid, cloaked in the sudden, sickening reverence of the townsfolk. He wore his piety like a freshly laundered shroud, his voice a low, honeyed venom as he pointed his finger at her.
"Wickedness," he whispered, and the word hung in the damp air like rot.
It was an old trap, a familiar nightmare. He had spun this web before, burying his own black deeds beneath a mountain of fabricated sins, all laid at her feet. Now, he sat enshrined among the elders, a wolf sheltered by the sheep, his past safely buried in the dark soil of their collective ignorance. He was the architect of her ruin, yet he sat immaculate in the glow of their unearned grace.
She opened her mouth to scream the truth, but the sound died in her throat. She looked at the blank, hollow eyes of the community. They were blind. They were deaf. The heavy silence of the room told her everything: her voice was dead to them, a ghost story they had already chosen to forget.
The Rented Veneer
They offered gifts
Nothing but rotten silk,
A cheap spectacle
Staged for the public eye.
Now, in the suffocating quiet,
I am forbidden to touch it.
I can only breathe,
And give it back.
No one understood
A quiet voice kept him strong
Dream girl led his way
Lost inside numbers
Dreams were all he held on to
Soft voice said, “Don’t stop”
They called him crazy
Still he followed silent hope
She lived in his mind
Now the world sees him
What once lived inside his mind
Finally came true
why am i like this…?
god…
why does my soul feel so distant
from everyone i call mine?
i stand among them,
smiling—
like i belong…
but inside,
it feels like
i’m slowly disappearing.
Fullness in Emptiness
Sometimes when I’m alone I feel empty
I feel alone and miss my family.
I remind myself when I was twenty
experiencing all the calamity.
I longed for many years – liberation.
Praying everyday that I will have freedom
which lead to alienation.
but it lead me closer to His kingdom.
I tried to forgive them – I tried to
though in the end I had to save myself.
I knew I could not let myself go to
the same place of darkness, I knew my health
is important. Being alone I knew
is difficult. I needed to start new.
Slithering tentacles glide atop
And s stormy abyss beneath
One abyss staring into other's heart
Between stands the light,
desolate and discreet
When did the mermaids
sing the melodious songs
Why did the mighty Neptune weep
What swallowed the mighty sun
When did this eternal night creep
Years, months or centuries passed?
Or has it been barely just a week
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