First place
Straight Jacket society
Jayna Marks
Can you hear the six white walls?
Padded and plastered in cement
They don’t creek, they speak
They don’t leak, they screech
Do you listen?
Do you listen?
Do you hear?
The drowned voice of your reflection
Or see your thoughts play
a movie like your eyes are a projector
And your lips mouth the tongue of the
mad men before
And walk the line between
Straight jacket societies
Do you look?
Do you see?
Traumatized children
In a straight jacket society
Padded wall playgrounds fill their heads
Suicide and homicide fill these caskets
Can you hear the six white walls?
Padded and plastered in cement
They don’t creek, they speak
They don’t leak, they screech
Do you feel it?
Do you feel that?
They pillow the walls to
cushion the pavement
They pillow your thoughts
With heavy medication
See these are the burdens
It’s a curse to be a patient
But still I return
I sit in a room of peers
But nobody hears
The six white walls
Or the four dark corners
The 24 hour camera
It’s mandatory reporter
But no one will really say this is out of the
ordinary
Because we all live
In a straight jacket society
~~~
Second PLace
Papaya.
Erin E. Enriquez
Nobody tells you what it feels like.
When you get attention after 3 years of its absence.
When, it's not right.
Like a well written smut, the boy you liked all year starts scooping your insides like gutting a
papaya.
Like roaches, his fingers crawl up your leg from your knee.
Like a hummingbird's tongue let loose in a lily, in and out.
His nails are long.
When he follows you as you try to escape.
Nobody tells you what it feels like.
When all you can do is…give in…and give up.
Getting humped and groped during practice, not a week later.
Trying to put a computer away and getting slapped from behind.
Trying to bawl and sob quietly each time at home.
Trying not to burn yourself.
Cut yourself.
Kill yourself.
…
To feel empty.
As though with every stroke of his fingers, he disembowelled your soul.
Disembowelled you.
When you realise your first kiss was assault.
Nobody tells you what it feels like.
When you realise, this was bound to happen.
After all, you are a woman.
Like a right of passage, you're stripped of your being, your identity.
You become a foul person to be around.
Like the rotting fruit on the counter.
Nobody tells you what it feels like.
When you heal yourself in quarantine.
When you come back, all people can say is how much of a bitch you were.
Bitch.
He called me that when gutting me…when I tried to fight.
Nobody tells you what it feels like.
Being a woman today.
~~~
Third Place
(Faces of a Thunderstorm)
Baileigh Hinds
I was so small in the face of a thunderstorm
Wet feet on concrete
The echo of raindrops hitting the the tin roof
The rain
Cradled
Me
Held me when no one else did
Growing up and out of two broken flower pots
Standing in the rain
Liquid streaming down my cheeks
Pain washing away with clay
Eyes became potholes poring over with water looking up at you
No one to hold me
When my tears fell like rain
When my screams became the thunder echoing in the vacant skies
I am now cradling the younger version of myself inside me
Holding the small frail creature i was in my angry hands
The child is weeping and I am screaming
But i can only hear the thunder
And a familiar pitter patter on the tin roof
~~~
Honorable Mention
Clouds
Analeia Muñoz
Fear is what I see when I look out at clouds…
My heart skipping beats confused and longing for the safe feeling
I want to be like the clouds…
The build up of fear and sadness that they once just let out.
The feeling of rain on my skin
The stress once built up but released under immense pressure.
Just like that…
A breath of relief and there back to a beautiful form.
White carelessly taking on the hatred of the world
A cycle to repeat over and over as if it didn’t matter.
Why can’t I move carelessly like the clouds?
Just letting it go when it gets too heavy.
I want that sense of longing for someone
For that feeling of being wanted and loved
Like the clouds that join together on a bright sunny day
Effortlessly yet beautiful
I want to be like the clouds…
~~~
Honorable Mention
no one on this fucking earth makes me feel as alive like the fake worldcreated in my
head, because at least my mind is safer than the world.
Denise Chavez
I want you to crush my skull and everything in it
Use your hands, them being the only i trust
Violate my mind
Every thought I have ever thought
Every memory
Good or bad
Traumatic or euphoric
Crush it with your bloody hands.
Leave me nonexistent with my name being only an utterance in a chapel
Be on your knees as you silently pray for me
My presence
To come back again, for a second time
Just like Jesus
But unlike the holy trinity
I will be there for you
I am real for you.
So hold me close when you can
Remind me how I am not a decaying corpse that breathes
And if I am
Lie to me that I am not
Lie to me about how much you love and adore me
Lie to me as Christians lie about their faith.
Oh, their lies are so faithful
Do that to me too.
Lie to me again, I love it when you do.
Each time I see something terrible, rip my ears off
Do not let such innocence lay hear of the sin.
If there is destruction happening, use your body to shield me.
Protect me just for you.
For only your hands will my mind be crushed.
But you are only in my mind.
You are my mind,
You are the hands i trust
When it’s too much you will pull the plug on yourself without any consent from the
understanding of continuous
You are my only safe space
You should come from the world in front of me
You are the place I go to when it’s too much
I cry when you don’t work
When you start processing important quizzes or dates
I am selfish
Because you already do so much
How dare I ask for your help with a silly paper that will only make me break down into glass
shards
When you are trying to piece my life together with tape
You do so much for me. \Much more than my government has ever done.
Even if you make me want to die,
At least I’m safer in you, than in the outside world
Where I’d be killed
hurt
Sexually harassed
Murdered for being who I am.
Cacti Fur 