oh my gosh 

the captcha just told my other captcha to die

GET OVER HERE RIGHT NOW AND APOLOGIZE 

Alright, so low turnout this round (sadly) but I'm going to assume that's because it's a) a lot of people's spring breaks and a lot of people's first weeks back in school after spring break (which means a whole lot of stress), and b) NaPoWriMo and NaNoWriMo, which is, um, a lot, so people are busy with that too.

To everyone, though, please don't let this thread die. It's such a big part of the CB for me, I'd hate to see it go.

Also, apologies this is a day late :) 

and now *drumroll please* the results! All three (haha) of the poems were wonderful and I enjoyed reading all of them.

In third place, Jaybells!

The light tone you use in this poem is a cover, a disguise for something completely different. The speaker is trying to pass off whatever happened as not-a-big-deal, as something that they can just hide and pretend never happened, but it did.

And yet, we're all eager to sweep it under the table when we make mistakes, and this made me feel guilty because heck yeah I've been in this situation and heck yeah I've done exactly the same thing. 

It's always there, and you capture it perfectly with your "And words will never disappear/Because they were never seen in the first place." But then you switch back to your I-can-fix-it! mood, and pretend it never happened.

This hit me, very hard. Thank you for participating :) 

In second place, Hawthorne!

First of all, thank you for participating even when you weren't planning to. Second, this was a beautiful poem. And I felt the speaker's pain through every stanza. "vi. perhaps i don't exist anymore". I love how it seemed like (to me- poetry is interpretive, so if you wrote this with a different intention or someone read it and got something different, everyone's right in this situation) the speaker's sense of self-worth is completely dependent on the "you"'s opinion of them. And "you" doesn't even notice- they're off in their own world, completely oblivious to the fact that this person is fading away right in front of their very eyes.

It was a reminder, for me, that what I say and do matters, and how I treat people matters. And it also made me cry. So thank you for this. I loved it <3

In first place, Snazzycakes! 

Oh my words. This hit me hard. All the things I'm not brave enough to say, all the words the people I love deserve to hear that I'm just not brave enough to tell them. It was all here. I know that when you're friends with someone of a different gender than you, you sometimes get "shipped" with them.

Not okay, on so many levels. Shipping is for fictional characters only, for one, and for two, why does being friends with someone not the same gender as you immediately make you romantically attracted to them? It's so wrong.

But anyways, I've been the receiving end of that kind of assumption, too, and you kind of summed up everything I felt in those moments too.

This was so powerful and made me really emotional, and that's impressive. Thank you for participating and congratulations! Hopefully your theme has some higher turnout.

~~

This was a really hard round to judge, despite (or maybe because) there were so few entries. Jaybells and Hawthorne's poems were both incredible, and I enjoyed reading every word of all three poems.

Congrats again, Snazzy, and I look forward to writing a poem for your theme :) 

Oh my, I'm so sorry, I didn't see this!

Congrats Snazzycakes and Jaybells, I really liked both of your poems! Thanks for the second place Lumi and the wonderful comments, I'm glad you liked the poem!

The next theme will be rain, I'll judge on 15th, can't wait to see everyone's poems!

Again, I'm so sorry I didn't post this sooner! 

There are two sides

To every story.

When the rain begins

Its trickling path down

My window, I

Pull on my jacket and

Walk in the rain, the

Streetlights casting their

Dusty, comforting glow.

The rain pours down my head,

Marking its life and history

In the places where it lands

And falls

And tumbles

Back to the earth, which

Takes the water and

Gives life.

There are two sides

To every story.

Rain, in its gray and

Slightly ethereal state

Represents something I can’t

Find the words to explain, and

Even if my puny 

human brain had the

capacity to 

comprehend it, I 

wouldn’t want to say it,

Anyway.

Sometimes, if I

Am brave enough to stick my hand

Out the front door, I feel

The cold, wet clamminess

Of liquid sadness.

There are two sides

To every story. 

Here's mine! I hope it's got enough to do with theme. See if you can figure out what it's about.

Two Different Storms

The sun is always shining somewhere 

I want the thought of that to make me okay

but as the storm strikes through my window

I know, I know...

All I wanted was a chance to say my goodbyes

but the rain washed them all away

and now you're gone.

I remember

the day you got the email

You screamed for joy

and I screamed too

But can I be honest?

I really maybe kind of wasn't screaming for you...

You laughed you put that sweatshirt on

I wondered why we had to grow up

I noticed that the hoodie didn't quite fit

but you didn't seem to mind

You're not here to see the storm

that rages inside and out

and even though you're gone, it feels like you're still here...

The sun is always shining somewhere,

but that means it's raining somewhere, too.