2016
First Place Winner in Poetry wins $300
My love for you is
jaundiced like the pages of a book untouched, and I could pry apart the pages,
but I no longer crave the pain that follows.
If you were here, I might
be happy, yet not nearly as accomplished, because my sadness is the most
beautiful artist.
Happiness inspires a
laziness, which I am not yet sure I want.
For now, I keep you on
the bookshelf.
And I wonder if you are
happy residing on that bookshelf, if another has read you, and if they better
resonate with your story.
You were my favorite
novel; perhaps someone else now makes that claim.
But we are not meant to
read just one work in our lifetimes, even though we each acquire a partialness
to a certain one.
I loved your sentences
like I needed air, but I cannot love what is no longer here.
I resent you for your
choice to end the story, even if it was hard for you, it was harder for me, as
it was not my doing.
Still, I keep you on the
bookshelf.
As I read more, I find
that there is a surprising variation of words that I have never encountered
before, and I like some of them almost as much as yours.
However, new words do not
replace the old ones as I had anticipated; they only gain their own spots on
the shelf.
I have become a library
of failed relationships.
The bookshelf overflows.
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