Oh my gosh, I feel so bad! So so so sorry I'm late with the judging. And I gotta say: This was hard! I kinda wanted to put all your poems in first place, becuase they ALL deserve it. Not lying. And with nothing else to say... THE RESULTS!

Honorable Mentions: Wreeboo! I love it! It's such a beautiful way to describe birdsong, and how it's music that we all ignore. The message of the last two stanzas is especially powerful, and I really like the lines, "Birdsong is such/ an old kind/ of music". The way the stanzas and lines are sort of dropping off the page is reminiscent of birdsong as well. Great job!

Nightfall DreamFire (Great name, by the way)! I love the way the words are placed, almost one by one, onto the paper. It's beautifully short and sweet, and emanates such a feeling of bittersweet freedom, like the listener (to the music) knows that their perfect is escape isn't forever. It's beautiful. (Also, I'm really sorry to hear that you've been going through depression. Especially right now, when you can't interact much with friends and are doing everything online... I encourage you to keep writing poems. Take all your feelings and put them into your poems. It can really help!)

Sunbeam! Wow. I love the eloqunece and the sweetness and love in every line. The first one is a great intro, both mysterious and crystal-clear. The second gives me such a clear image, sweet and tender. The third and fourth lines work so well together, showing where you are, and what you're like. It's amazing. THe fifth line brings it all home in such a powerful way. It shows that even though you don't know why this moment is so beautiful, you still "understand this just fine." Amazing!

Luna-Starr! I love this one. It's so short and sweet, beautifully rich and poignant. I especially love the line, "these veins sing with untold stories". Talking about carry lost melodies and symphonies in your hands... I honestly had a hard time not putting you in third place. 

Third Place: dreamiing! Whoa. That poem was amazing. It's such a beautifully told story, so sad and joyfull all at once. I love the whole thing, but I especially love the last stanza. It's just... wow. It so flawlessly tells the whole story. Heart shattered, but the cracks filled with song. I have no words.

Second Place (Tie): Kitten and Jaybells!

Kitten: I love this so much. It's unlike any love poem I've seen before. So melodic (haha puns) and flowing. It's a beautiful thing to describe a person and love through both music and a poem. It's so amazing. I really like the repition of, "The music of your ___ lingers in my ____" and "even if you're no longer here." It really ties the whole poem together. Beautiful.

Jaybells: Your poem was stunning. It so eloquently describes how music flows and whirls, all through the eyes of memory and regret. Just... Wow. The lines "That moonlit/ cursed song" and "Chaos subsiding/ or so we thought. but we were wrong. Oh, so wrong." This is so beautiful. I'm speechless.

First Place: Luminesence! Hollllllllllly molllllllllllly. This POEM!! It's so mirrorlike, the reflections so similar but whole-heartedly different. THe two girls are so alike, wondering about the future of the past, always asking, "did you?" or will you? Especially amid the pandemic, the thought of other children just like us, in the same situation we are, watching the world fall apart and being powerless to stop it, is somehow comforting. And you've captured that so well. It's so melancholy sweet, just two girls in their crumbling worlds, asking, begging, for a voice to talk to, for someone to hear them, someone a hundred years away. This poem is so powerful, it leaves me breathless. 

I really dont write poetry but this theme is so pretty!

 Traveler's Tale

i do not have a home

although this oak tree is cozy

and the birds that live in it want me to stay

i do not have a love

but i feel for the wide blue sky

and the ground beneath my feet likes me

i do not have a family

except for the friends i've made along the way

and the flowers that grow on my heart

i forgot what i used to have

but this is enough for me

because i am just a wanderer

the birdsong will tell my tale

and one day i’ll live among the stars

To Wander into a Story

There is a certain wonder,

or wanderlust, one might say,

in picking a book  

at random,

a happy accident, one might also say,

and flipping pages

headfirst

into a whole other world

with whole other people

and problems and beginnings 

and endings,

endings you wished wouldn't happen,

but that is the way of stories and of everything.

And after the last page

is reluctantly shut,

you

are just a wee bit

different, wiser

from your travels

and there's always

another story

to wander into. 

Sometimes, when

No one’s watching

I escape into

My own mind, spinning

Tales of wonder

As I wander through

The splashes of

Color and light and

Glimmering imagination.

Then, when my inside-myself’s

Feet hit the inside of my mind,

I’m in my library,

Shelves and shelves of

Old-looking books stretching

Farther and farther into the

Amber light of my head.

Red carpet under

My feet and the smell of

Books in my nose and

So many sights to see, but

I always know exactly what

Book to choose.

And when I’m finally noticed

I reemerge from that library

And smile,

And say

I was just

Wandering.

remember that time

when you picked me up 

in your clunky little car 

and we just started driving 

who knows how far?

past the gray buildings that march down my street

through the sweet-smelling orange groves

and fields of wheat

far past the cities 

where we spent all our days 

and into the countryside

where the cows calmly grazed. 

we wandered through meadows

filled with flowers just beginning to bloom 

and we basked in the sun, free of gloom

but then the sun began to set

and we knew we had to go

so we made a wish on the first star we saw

and took one last mental photo. 

you promised to take me back there

at least one more time

but I never did see that meadow again 

for we could never find our way.

I look at that photo tucked in my mind 

each and every day.   

This poem is really short, and I don't love it, but here's my entry! I feel like there was so much I could have done with this theme, and I'm not quite sure why I decided to go with this, but It's not bad! This was such a good theme! <3

Someone to wander with~

I can walk alone-

i can wander alone-

i can be alone,

but wandering with you-

wandering with anyone-

would be better.

i want someone to wander with.

I can watch.

i can be.

i can wander.

and so can you.

so why can't you wander with me?

why can't you be the person i wander with?

i live in a radio world-

a fold in the dress of the universe where all the cars are twenty years old and people shout from fire escapes and all the melancholy gets crumpled into a ball and tossed into the depths of my heart where it only grows.

i walk cobblestone roads on bruised feet and i am walking paper with no song within me, only icy veins and a longing for a home

the noise around me is a symphony too beautiful for the broken glass in my soul;

"if only", comes the whisper from my head to my spine through the tips of my bloodless fingers-

if only the wisp of hope within me could leave this cage behind and wander among the stars

where i would truly be home