3rd Place

Sitting alone with lingering thoughts keeping me company
and a restless feeling that plagues my core.
Springing alive only to torture me.
Drowning my heart in its fluid,
ringing in my ears
till I’m deaf with its sound
and leaves me numb with nothing but
my thoughts and this cursed feeling.
I try to drown it out, plugging tunes in my eardrums.
Getting lost in the melodies but somehow
it finds its way back into my soul.
I try blinding my eyes to its presence
and yet when I wake, it's all that I can see,

Hands. Extending. Anticipating.
Like the sun ready to kiss the moon.
Like the stars beckoning to dance with the sky.
Though night is destined to come,
my hands rise to the sun, knowing they'll be touched.
My heart growls.
Wanting to devour the sweet taste of life.
Savor the crisp of its bite and the warmth of its broth.
But nothing comes.
No stars dance across the bare sky.
No sun warms the cheeks of the moon.
And my hands continue to reach for its savior,
but the sky seems farther away.

My body, a slave to a pipe that births nothing but sweet lies.
I inhale her perfume till my dreams and reality are one and the same.
Injecting myself into false promises.
Breathing in lies till my lungs recognize what's real.
Maybe get full off television till I’m drunk with fiction.
But my eyes want more.
They crave an instant fix.
My body desires anything that takes the pain away.
Slays reality.
So I consume more lies.
With each ounce, my stomach grows and my lungs beg for more.
I am what I eat.

Poems about Love and the Lack Thereof
Babe
I’m falling for you
Like a narcoleptic
Down a flight of stairs
Like a dog seizing
From too many stab wounds
I froth at the mouth and quake
Only for your lovin’s sake

Shoot me up one last time
Tap the twisted vein
That starts at my heart
And drowns my bleedin’ brain

Enough of those stupid romance words
You stole from a dime store shelf
Love me in sum
And save up your ten cent plagiarisms
For my downpour

Introduction by Peter Kim, Barrett Committee:

Hear the words
chime like bells
around the city.

where
is
god?

bones sprout where flowers
belong; insects crawl over dead
bodies; the fields are flooded
with corpses instead of water.

where
is
god?

the mother has abandoned
her first child; the first child
cradles a baby; a baby’s cries
pierce the air instead of a lullaby.

where
is
god?

i marvel at pain, how it endures
how this brittle flesh of mine takes and takes
the only sign of its tired state a rough scar

i marvel that these ears have not yet begun to bleed
despite the ugly words they have heard
and this heart, it beats still, though my mind screams for it to

STOP.

how these breaths
come
and
go
and
i only have the strength rallied in a

p a u s e,

He kneels on the pale marble floor,
she sits under the harsh white light
and the moment is pregnant with silence.
This house is clouded by a darkening night
and when my father starts to cry
my mother starts to scream.

The tears of hard years
carved mountains and valleys
like wrinkles across his face and hers.

In mending what is eternally broken
they have both shattered
and the rest of us are damaged, collateral

Collecting dolls
a body count

besides myself, the scissors
seem to work best on tender flesh

I should know.

we’re lined up, picturesque
I see my brothers and sisters lean

cold against the wall
bare white room, and God

you’re hurting me

watches us with angry
tears in her eyes, making tears

in each of us. she
likes to pick and choose

you’re hurting yourself

she even does it to herself
a nose, here, there, an ear

the patchwork
is simply monstrous

At one point, I was an only child, and I imagine that the spotlight shone on me. I don’t remember, however, as my younger sister came along less than two years later. I also don’t remember a time when she wasn’t ill and commanded all my mother’s attention. She was diagnosed at a young age with muscular dystrophy. While my father checked out to cope, my mother grounded herself by leaping into action, doing all the research she could and doting on my sister. We didn’t have much serious illness in our family; in fact, we had several relatively accomplished athletes.