Title Toss Voting

Please read all of the following poems, and PM me with 2 votes, your 1st, and then 2nd place winner:

" I vote for:
1 - poem 1
2 - poem 2 "

I will award every 1st place with 10 points, and 2nd place with 5 points.

ANYONE CAN VOTE ON THIS! SO PLEASE DO.

Voting closes on Thursday night, and I will announce the winner on Friday.

Good luck all.

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#1
Title: Darkened Scars

I invaded the open truth
of light never bouncing off
my scarred skin,
to prove the power
of our illusions -
the mirage of life itself

Because I've always
been an outsider,
a beaten, broken,
self-loathing child
in a society that taught me
how falling like dominoes
is the only way to survive;

I met the huntress on a dinner date,
and I asked her if it's worth it,
to hunt down us, the lost ones:
We, who ride on shadows, outcasts,
despite train wrecks being
the only result possible
when clashing against our souls:

She told me to meet her later instead,
not having an answer ready by hand,
and while I was gone she prepared
to make me force between light and life come sundown

I told her that we, the shadows,
always live prepared for
never being able to see
the edges of tomorrow:
we wake up in the morning assuming
that any day now we could perish

And as a rider of the darkest shadows,
hunted by those who can't see in the dark,
I already knew this was my last debate.

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#2
Edge of Tomorrow

Passions burning,
the world's turning,
on the edge of tomorrow.

Lives have been lost,
freedom has a cost.
on the cusp of great sorrow.

We break our backs
to pay the tax,
we beg or barrow

It's worth the price
to sacrifice
on the edge of tomorrow

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#3
Reconstruction

I tried to shove the open truth
between every layer of the wound
that constantly aches in my chest,

every muscle
every vein
every beat

hoping I would find the edge
of tomorrow wedged between
the memories of you and me.

They say the healing is in
the aching but there are days
when my sighs are not quite
deep enough

(they linger when all I really
want them to do is settle)

and coffee just doesn't
taste the same without
you sipping half of my
cup before getting your own.

-

We were the architects of
our life and now you're gone
while I'm still here,

filing unfinished blueprints
and reconstructing what's
left of a condemned heart.

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#4
Title: The invader

It doesn't feel like home without some broken glass
no one remembers shattering (like a heart). Showing
emotion is frowned upon because it's not a comfort
zone. I'm sorry my room is so messy but it's a reflection
of how I feel inside.

I'm just so tired of showing you my smile when my
moods are ephemeral. Or journaling because I'm not a
good judge of my own character, I can't be trusted. My body language can write its own story because silence speaks louder then words.

You stormed out of here like a bipolar squall. One minute I was sweet and sugar (even though I'm diabetic). The next you were crying hurricanes...I wonder why they don't name disasters after you.

But after all that I wouldn't change anything. Your memories
are peices on a quilt that keep me warm, but
my heart is Antarctica in winter. And after all these
sleepless nights I still wonder where you are. Probably in
heaven but that's okay, you were always angelic in white.

It was given because we two-stepped through
landmines for too long. I was the cyanide to your
protagonist. The hero always dies in the end. So I'll
rot here in hell, an invader in my home.

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#5
Your truths, they wash away

While I was gone, you wrote a letter titled, "the Open Truth".
I was not aware that on the edge of tomorrow,
your smudges of graphite would be the only remnants of you,
for you became the outsider, no longer serving as the invader,
the protector, whenever I struggled with myself.

You used to create heroes of us, shadow riders who would board
the soul train and never lose our souls though the night always
threatened to deceive us and hijack our identities.
We spoke of a thousand ways to live, dinner dates never scheduled,
you and I like a domino kid who believed once one dream was knocked down, the rest tumbled as you kept muttering,
"any day now."

Why did you wait so long?
Why did you choose to stay in the mirage of life,
losing all solidity, all realizations, though you claimed to visualize
truth before it was even broadcast among children
and society and... us.

It was I, never you, who made the decision at sundown.
The decision to rein my heart in, stop depending on
your command, and stop wishing you would ride on
bemused winds of my presence.
I am now the female hunter of the person I will become,
the one leading the last debate that decides who I
can painlessly trust.

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#6
Title: Little Black Dress

I search the night for answers, the lioness in me begging the moon
to guide me, and I believe I'll come across the horizon at

11.59PM

I only need to see you in your little black dress
and the hour is complete.

You invade everything that's right,
you are the mirage of a life that will never be us.

Children, society, everything we fail to fix
all comes down to the last debate,
as I type out these words,
shackled to a seat on the soul train
as shadow riders fly past the window,
shielding the light.

I'll make the last decision at Sundown,
for while I was gone, the domino kid
told you we were two sixes,
and to the outsider, we complete the game.

But any day now, I'll come running back

For I forget how you always cheat me, play me like a fool.

Your little black dress discarded on your bedroom floor, and
the closed curtains hide the open truth.

I am not yours.

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#7
Title: Any Day Now

While I was gone, the open truth
of how our mirror-images reflect
not our selves, but barricades of masks outward
became so clear that I made massacres
of kind words and long lost promises
so that the ruthless shadow riders couldn't reap;

I stumbled into myriad down-ward spirals
chaining me to the edge of tomorrow,
but any day now, the light of never will shine
for 'tis but a self-pitying facade
to assume that you are alone

I gave my life to her, the huntress,
when I noticed how I was a prey:
I welcomed the idea of having
a dinner date with death --
of having this one last debate:

But neither Death nor the Huntress
could give me the revelations needed
for me to save our children from this sick society
in which LGBT-kids fall like dominoes
through punches, kicks, and curses,
over represented in suicide statistics

Which frustrated me to no ends,
because being the invader
in this conservative society,
I will always be an outsider,
yet still hoping that I can
spare someone this very fate

Because any day now
there's gonna be another suicide:
another life lost,
another child lost,
any day now
any day now
any day now

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#8
Edge of Tomorrow:

lately all I want is
a way out
of here.

and they say that
I can't have that
because I am too this
or too that.

they say it's not
up to me because
it will affect him
and her and them
too.

but I have come to
realize that it cannot
be up to them -
any of them.

Each person gets
one life.

to live and die
as they please.

it's all in their hand
dancing in the golden
light of potential

waiting at the
edge of tomorrow

so I am going to
take it and to
use it as it was
intended.

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Good luck all. Nice poems!

Wow, beautiful poems! Great job everyone!

Amazingly penned pieces. fantastic job all!

Good luck everyone!

I can't wait to see the results