1st Place – Poetry Category Grades 7th – 9th “Ghost in This World” By Marlee Day GHOST IN THIS WORLD In this world I am invisible To peoples eyes I am a nothing In my home, I am a ghost As I walk through the halls I feel llike I am the smallest thing I am the ghost who is left alone When I walk down the street I look into those glass walls I see nothing, not even my own reflection. I am a ghost in this world who has nothing, feels nothing, and who is treated like a nothing. I am a ghost in this world and I will be nothing more. 2nd Place - Poetry Category Grades 7th – 9th “Imagine Yourself” By Roza Lane Imagine yourself Alone in your head You’re hanging, dangling From a silver thread Empty, alone With the monsters within Internally screaming You just want to give in Now imagine that’s you Everyday, every hour Forever sinking Like a wilting flower You try to tell your dad And you try to tell your mom But they say you’re being silly You’ve just got to move on Because teens don’t know sorrow Nor the hardships of life They’re just kids with imaginations Just looking for attention, right? Imagine Yourself Page 2 You think there is none Who know how you feel You’re just so alone But the feelings- they’re real Useless, neglected, forgotten, Distressed, alone, afraid, but Mostly depressed And your friends They go on Like nothing has changed ‘They must not care’ Your thoughts whisper The lies in your brain You can’t escape it Trapped in your own skin You’re ugly You’re hated But you mask it with a grin You hate what you feel So instead you feel nothing Your insides are numb Your confidence crumbling You look to other things To stop the pain Imagine Yourself Page 3 Cutting, pills But it gives you no gain And the people around you Shout abuse your way “You’re hurting yourself, stop it!” That’s all they ever say No matter how you plead that You’re broken inside They turn the other way They run, they hide They say you’re foolish It’s all in your head What they don’t know is, Inside you’re already dead 1st Place – Poetry Category Grades 10th-12th “Compass” By Brittany M. Jones Compass Lead me South to the sea North to the sky Lead me, my compass of the night I’ll hold it close, like a watch in my palm Following the light, feeling the calm Lead me, like a star I’ll wish, a wish to follow it It comes and goes, no one knows how to descriBe it Can you taste it like sweets? Or smell it like candles? My mom says it flutters, while my sister says it dances The feel of flowers, the warmth of spring A tickle I feel when I see his face He’ll lead me, my star, my compass of the night Showing me the radiance of stars in the sky Lead me Compass Page 2 West to my heart East to lust The tangles of rust Explain this sensation Too overwhelming to Be a crush The word, I know this word I say it aches, while he says it Breaks Don’t direct me to pain, Breaking my compass and cancelling spring Fragile, was it really ever there? I want to Be rid of this compass 2nd Place- Poetry Category Grades 10th- 12th “A Silence Came Into the Room” By Emma Montemayor A silence came into the room as the footsteps died away A minute passed and another minute. A young girl hid underneath her covers And she waited and waited for her mother to return, And while she waited, she tried her Best not to fall. A shot sounded in the distance and suddenly, It wasn’t so silent anymore. She could hear everything, A scream here and there. Another shot. A knock came from the door downstairs. Sirens Blared from outside the window. The girl wasn’t sure what was happening, She fell asleep Before she could find out the truth. She was with her parents now. They were happy. Finally. 3rd Place – Poetry Category Grades 10th – 12th “DEDICATION” By Will Allen Waking up earlier than the rest, Just to make sure that I am at my Best. Exercising at my max, While the others just sit Back and relax. Waiting for my time to shine, Dedicated to not sitting on the pine. Playing in college has always Been a dream, Just to suit up for a Big 12 team. Dedicated to making this my future, I will no longer Be this loser. To sit around and wait, I need to make it count Before it is too late. If I really want this life style, I need to go past the extra mile. I need to train the hardest, And Be the mentally smartest. To show everyone, My career is not done. Competing with my Best stuff, Dedication Page 2 Will sure enough, Make me a Better person, And show I am determined. Also this is an illustration, To show my dedication. 1st Place – Poetry Category Adult “Meditation” By Sheryl L. Nelms Meditation a quarter section of hybrid sunflowers in a North Dakota field at sundown reminds me of a congregation of pioneer women praying 2nd Place Adult “fishing for monsters” By Sheryl L. Nelms fishing for monsters it was dough Balls and stink Bait mixed days before then we had to wait for the night of the full moon we’d go at dusk to Lake Afton spread out Grandma’s old quilt Bait the hooks loft them out set the tensions and wait in the darkening July night with the water-cooled Breeze chattering the cottonwood leaves we would listen for the whine of a reel or the flop of a giant cat as the cicadas packed seventeen years of Buzz into one Blitz and late in the night we would eat fishing for monsters page 2 white Bread sandwiches of cheddar cheese and mustard and I would squint at the moon-rippled water from my spot Between Mom and Dad and imagine my life 3rd Place - Poetry Category Adult “BANTAM CITY” By Loretta Diane Walker BANTAM CITY My garden in crowded like Manhattan; the sky generous with rain these past weeks. Miss Spring skipped through my flowers, shaking her head like a wet shaggy dog and raking her fingers across my small share of the earth. She scratched until flakes of green dandruff flecked the sandy Bed and spilled onto its stone headBoard. Summer! There’s a Bantam city outside my patio door with queer citizens. Six foot Blonde sunflowers are skyscrapers with rough hairy legs and Bushy coarse mops. There is no intimidation in their Buttery seedy eyes as they stare into the sun weaving Baskets of heat. They do not Blink at Bees, squirrels, wrens or ants tramping across dirty streets. Conceited zinnia floozies look hot and sassy in their short crimson skirts. They have no shame in the way they attract Butterflies and allow hummingBirds to serenade them. Oh, if they would learn modesty from the plump marigold missionaries in a neighBoring Block. They do not Bow their hardy heads while worshiping the sun. Their demeanor is humBle, genuine as they offer up hundreds of yellowing soft teeth in perpetual smiles of praise. How patient they must Be to cohabitate with those Begonias and the pink petticoats—such drama queens, so demanding, such whiners. We want the canopied corner. More food. More water. We’ll wither if we don’t have these things. Bantam city Page 2 See those neurotic morning glories creeping about. They scale fences, walls, and the thick legs of moonflowers in their quiet Beauty. Their Para-Para is to show off their agile long arms and pastel tattooed Bodies. Gangs of lilac, white and Blue crowd against the city’s stone gate to cheer them on, or mayBe they are decoys sent to distract me from opening this new package of gardening sheers. Para-Para synchronized line dancing Honorable Mention- Poetry Category Adult “MONLOGUE OF A PAPER TOWEL” By Loretta Diane Walker MONOLOGUE OF A PAPER TOWEL Fat quiet hovers around the ceiling, the meat of sound gone home with the children. With pad, pen and Book, she heads out to joB numBer two at the Texas Oncology Center. It is work to sit in the chair, Balance small talk, sleep, and words. Her mind, that Bulldozer, pushes Back tears, packs them in the Bowls of her eyelids. But with two strong Breaths the concrete of her resolve can crack, send wet tracks down the avenue of her cheeks. Her Body switches professions; the skin above her heart a pincushion— needles drive a line into the port stitched in her vein. With eyes gripped shut, she collects other people’s years like paychecks—twenty, ten, five years free while machines chit-chat and drip poison from their small plastic mouths into her. Not crying is her new vocation and sweat is a disease spreading on her clothes; she uses me like a tongue to lick her overnight condition, squeezes me as though cancer is a spill she can wipe away. 1st Place – Short Story Category Grades 5th & 6th “Bittersweet” By Aprill Xi Bittersweet Note: Eareth is NOT Earth My mother died. Since I was small, we had some amazingly horrifying arguments about things I did not yet understood, and yet I felt sad and dreadful about the whole story.