Poetry competition CLOSED 21st October 2019 6:04pm
WINNER
crimsin (Unveiling)
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RUNNER-UP: Thetravelingfairy

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Dark Childhood Poem

gothicsurrealism
Daniel Long
Thought Provoker
United States 6awards
Joined 26th Nov 2018
Forum Posts: 138

Poetry Contest

Show us the dark side of your childhood.
Any style
Two entries max
Poetry any length
Prose Poetry minimum half a page
PM me for questions

gothicsurrealism
Daniel Long
Thought Provoker
United States 6awards
Joined 26th Nov 2018
Forum Posts: 138

Nurtured By Sorrows in Childhood

“Nurtured by sorrows in childhood”
…what the hell does that even mean?

I thought it, I wrote it.
I lived it, I remember it…

A child in darkness puts hell in ovation…
but where was my heaven?

I swear I was touched once then…
by an angel, I think.

I’m not sure, for its face was blackened
in the dimmed basement.

Cold, wet cement walls echoed whining.
Please… please why can’t it be a dream?

My angel, my protector and my hero
you should have been.

Your touch felt kind, caring and trustworthy…
but that face!

Oh, that face of yours chained me to the darkened corner
squeezing the childhood out of my broken body!

I grew up too fast in childhood.
I’d love to have it all back now.

One steals… what another’s lost;
your thieving smothered the light in my soul.

Nearly every day, I cross my arms over my chest
in the comforting hold of the only one who knows, who understands.

I hug me…
the bad won’t drain from this fragile being.

It has cemented itself to every corner of my body and mind.
I will never be free again.

Now and again, I think of that basement,
only to relive the horror.
Written by gothicsurrealism (Daniel Long)
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Non-entry poem by the author of the competition.

crimsin
Unveiling
Tyrant of Words
United States 121awards
Joined 25th Jan 2011
Forum Posts: 2608

little girl lost

       
       
*        
       
a little girl locked in a closet        
with just a crease of light        
penetrating the darkness        
underneath the door        
       
*        
       
three years old        
abandoned by mommy        
who lost her way home        
being schizophrenic        
       
*        
       
sent to foster care        
neglected and abused        
wild in nature        
       
*        
       
into the hands of Christians        
who told her they would be family        
accidentally letting the f word slip        
the sting of soap on her tongue        
       
*        
       
nose rubbed in her own pee        
when she wet the bed        
being emotionally damaged        
       
*        
       
this is the broken part of me        
a little girl lost        
still locked in that closet        
       
*        
       
fingers reaching under      
a darkened door        
forever reaching for the light        
       
       
       
 
 
*note this is true story a part of my life
   
   
   
   
   
Written by crimsin (Unveiling)
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gothicsurrealism
Daniel Long
Thought Provoker
United States 6awards
Joined 26th Nov 2018
Forum Posts: 138

Bravo crimsin! The first and last stanzas are both a powerful hook and closing for the reader!

-Daniel

Heaven_sent_Kathy
Thought Provoker
United States 9awards
Joined 1st Nov 2017
Forum Posts: 177

Risen From A Hunger

For in a time, when everywhere,
the child I was took comfort in
the dangers stalking, hunting us,
my kind, at every turn it chose.
Was where I found a solace in
the tribal rites, lord of the flies,
as bitter herbs I passive ate
because my hunger was so great.

Picked for my lack of size and years,
the tirade with the herbs which had
beleaguered spirit, start to trust
the pain one day would turn the tide.
Approval from humiliate
increase in skill & strength & size
to show the path on which I’d walk.
In this awakening, I felt
the apex sun upon my face,
and joy within my beating heart.
Uplifted from the quiet tone
of sorrow I had always known,
as being one, and of the same.

It started then as I began
to know the entity of love,
whose voice’s lift spoke to my mind.
Within my very soul was God,
whose teachings opened me to pray
as self is opened like a seed.
As it would grow then split again,
while spilling forth more joy until
I realized was not the same,
it was the answer to a prayer.




#KahlilGibran

NaPoGloPoWriMo 2019

My interpretation is also based on the harsh realities of my early youth, before and up to the realization of my spirituality and faith.

.
Written by Heaven_sent_Kathy
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Thetravelingfairy
Fire of Insight
United States 14awards
Joined 12th July 2017
Forum Posts: 252

Broken Swing Set

On that swing set
He came
Open arms, warm embrace
I was young
I thought it was play

Play structure dreams
These old memories
His hands on me
His fingers traveling
What is this new game?

Let me go, no means no
But I was small, he held me tight
Told me he had a secret
A mystery, a key
What does he mean?

Zipper moving
Floodgates were opening
He showed me his treasure
Invited my hands to reclaim it
What is this discovery?

I was running
He was hunting
He slipped away into the dark
Something was different, something changed
There was a broken swing set...
Written by Thetravelingfairy
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LunaGreyhawk
Dangerous Mind
United States 17awards
Joined 8th July 2019
Forum Posts: 864

Related submission no longer exists.

slipalong
Dangerous Mind
United Kingdom 41awards
Joined 1st Jan 2018
Forum Posts: 822

Our Secret

The ever open bag of sweets    
The hugs you thought were love      
Come my dear have one of these      
Unwrapped a mind of putrid scum      
A lick of my ice cream      
And blow the dandelion clock away      
Our secret to not share, no way      
A relative, an uncle        
How brief the accidental fumble      
Too embarrassed to feel dishevelled      
All family must stay together      
That secret locked his guilty pleasure      
To sit upon the lap and watch      
Cartoons you loved so much      
Just rearange your dress so it dont crease      
The crafty move of a filthy beast      
Set the scale of the family norm      
Doctors and nurses exploring each form      
To go to the places hidden underneath      
My parents would now cry in disbelief      
The subtle spin of the secret tryst      
The bribes that sweetened his sins emphasis      
To manipulate just the innocent      
Lured presents wrapped the cruel torment      
Locked and ingrained the pain never relents
Written by slipalong
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poet Anonymous

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poet Anonymous

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Ahrima
Lost Thinker
United States
Joined 12th May 2017
Forum Posts: 29

Another Day...

Another day at school,
Another day put to rest.
Another day at home,
Another day to forget.
Another day of happiness,
That is so long overdue.
Another day to cry and weep,
Right in front of you.
Another day to recover,
Another day to resume.
Another day to fight,
Another day to lose.
Another day to fall apart,
And scream at all the pain.
Another day to slit my wrist,
Then hang from a rope and sway.
Another day has passed,
Another day wont come.
Another day has slipped away,
Another day is... Well... gone.
 
 
Note:
Sorry for not being active. I will try to post more often.
Written by Ahrima
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wallyroo92
Tyrant of Words
United States 147awards
Joined 11th July 2012
Forum Posts: 1757

Reflections of a Civil War

I didn’t know about politics or the status quo,
I didn’t understand the right versus the left,
All I knew were images shown on the news
Until the war hit close to home

I had never seen so many burning buses
I had never seen so many men somber
I had never seen so many women crying
I had never seen so much blood like that

I had never heard bullets whiz by like that
I had never felt tanks roll by the boulevard
Shaking the streets and passageways
And deafening blasts that stun the soul

I had never seen men on the streets like that
Brains splattered on the pavement
Entrails displayed for all to see
I had never seen eyes like that

But when you’re only eight years old
The world is difficult to understand
For there is no simple explanation
When innocence slips away just like that
Written by wallyroo92
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anonymouslyhere
Pariah Shadow
Dangerous Mind
United States 5awards
Joined 31st Oct 2013
Forum Posts: 1633

Childhood Drowning

I remember your awful hands
Clothes ripping
Showerhead dripping
Echoes vibrate
From fingers to toes  
 
Those lights blinded me
Bareskin on a cold floor
Writhing, fighting
You took that away
Eventually
I was your puppet
 
 
 
I'm not sleeping
Sixteen fucking years
I'm in a cold-sweat
I'm still running
From your skin
 
You violent waste of sperm.

 
Written by anonymouslyhere (Pariah Shadow)
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eswaller
Dangerous Mind
United States 30awards
Joined 22nd Dec 2015
Forum Posts: 749

That Cold Summer Day

When I was younger,
With blonde hair, hanging lazily
Down my back in soft curls,
At that age of young innocence.
The summers, usually so light and airy
Usually full of strong rays of sunshine
With children laughing and smiling.
 
But that one summer
Felt so empty, so dark and heavy.
The idea of death was so unknown,
But now it hung above our heads
Changing everything.
 
After that day I was never able to touch
His old, hard, and leathery skin again
With the tubes sticking out
Of his frail and ghostly body
Like sharp needles.
 
I could still smell the wintry freshness
Of those mints he always handed
Out to us grandchildren.
We pretended like he was never there.
 
In my memories, he was never able to move freely.
He felt constricted to the depths
Of his bedroom in the back corner
Or silently sitting in his chair,
Never being able to hear his
Once rich and powerful voice.
We were trying to onto  
Something that we couldn’t understand.
You told me that some people
Were going to come and take him away.
I didn’t ask why. I didn’t care
About him until he was long gone
And I thought that maybe,
Someday he would come back,
But he never did.  
 
I was never able to meet the man
That my grandfather was.
Back to a time when he was healthy,
Before the sickness and death.
I wish that I had been able to meet
The man who loved his family
So dearly, so thoughtfully.
The man who I heard so many
Crazy and wild stories about.
 
That summer is now long gone.
But I think back to it often,
Forever remembering the pain
And darkness in that cold summer day.
Written by eswaller
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PoetsRevenge
Dangerous Mind
United States 28awards
Joined 30th June 2016
Forum Posts: 706

Just Once (Living River Of Hell)

'The trouble with being a woman, Skeezix,
is being a little girl in the first place'
 
'If this is Hell, then Hell could not be much,
 neither as special or as ugly as I was told.'
 
                      -Anne Sexton
 
 
I am diagnosed dragging on a Camel,
staring at the river, full of all the selves
of detachmemt from my actual one.
They used to be me as one self when I was
fused into the wall of my mother,
before I came here to this bridge.
 
I am deranging like the splitting haloes
of car headlights as they rush on that  
great freeway to somewhere, nowhere.
The river is a subway and the trains are  
stories of the dead derailed there.
There are pale orbs like faces saying,
we told you of such, you cannot be
cured of this indifference;
I have become the Horrid I always was,
child of a stranger, refolding into that mystery.
 
The house is gone with its fine bone china  
and good silver, replaced with pills and notebooks.
The river swallowed the rest of it, husband, children;
the oily tragedy floats in a slick of remnants
in the same shade of black it always wore  
when I dreamed of it, musing Nana with her
afternoon tea, saying, I am supposed to be
someone who cares, why can't I love this
like a great inhalation of medicine  
so as not to destroy it.
 
The river is a great swallower of
fate's shortcomings, I figure,
if I shoot my last hopes into it
I will be that much wiser;
why can't I be the depths it reaches?
Am I so shallow in my forty years of life,
drawing on feelings that come and go,
where is the great accomplisher
to reveal my wounds and bleed them dry?
 
To only know, to only know.
 
To only be that solace I seek,
to throw myself into it, or to be
the tossed stone that sinks
into this river of memory
as if it were Hell on Earth
glistening under the city lights
flickering its dim reminders,
dead faces loving me back  
as my child self loved them
wholly, once.
 
But now, at last we meet,
that great Mother of reunions,
I see her glaring in the forming mists
which forewarn me in a tragic welcoming.
Just once, I saw it:
The corpse I am destined to become.
 
       .....
Written by PoetsRevenge
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