Oh my gosh, thank you so much!!! I know there were only three entries, but it still means so much to me. The next prompt is silhouette, and I’ll be judging on September 14th (a bit over two weeks so that more people can hopefully submit their poetry). Looking forward to seeing what you all come up with!

*you’re the next judge
I’m not seeing your comment! Could you please repost it? Or maybe it’s just a weird function on my end 😔

Trying to circumvent glitches… if this doesn’t make my previous comment show up, I’ll repost, but hopefully this should do it.

I see it now 🥴 ooh good prompt!

I technically wrote two poems (over two days) but they’re meant to be one cohesive poem.

i.
All that is left of you
Is a cold silhouette
I reach for your hand
But it passes through, a shadow
The spark in your eyes
Has become dull gray
A ghost of a person
Have you become
But still, I wait for you
Longing even — for your silhouette

ii.
The shadows…are so cold…
Is my heart still…beating…?
Who am I…but a shadow…?
A mere silhouette…made of…
Misery…the fire within me…
Has gone cold…gray ashes…
But you — are still there for me —
Your warm smile and your love —
Ever patient — even for a silhouette —
I reach for you — please wait for me —

Planning to enter–I’ll put it on my to-do list

I’m extending the judging date to October 8th – hopefully we’ll have a couple more entries by then! @Lyric, tysm for entering (or planning to) :))

OMG so sorry! I thought I had entered:/ I couldn’t come up with a new poem, but I have this one that is kiiiinda silhouette based?

-Earthshine
We’ve always wished upon stars
Hoping that you could become one
And that dream has been received
You’re making craters
Shockingly good impacts
But when you step out
Into the stage light
The brightness turns your face into
Earthshine
All I can see is your outline
Gone are the supernova smiles and
Star filled eyes
No more Milky Way across your face
Dotting freckles in outer space
Even though everyone dreams of
Being a star
Once you are
One
It’s no trip to the moon
Never able to do what you’d like
Every request turns into a fight
Light pollution from camera flashes
Makes you fade away
Into nothing
Like how you are in the day
Wearing a constant disguise
Shadowing your appearance
From the skies
And when you step up to face
The audience
Your face turns
Earthlight
None of your features in clear sight
Your shooting star expressions have
Disappeared
Your Saturn’s rings beauty has gone
I fear
You turn as cold as Pluto
When surrounded by satellites
Pictures lack your real sunlight warmth
It doesn’t take rocket science to see
That to be
An astronaut soaring to unexplainable heights
Is not at all an enjoyable flight
Even though you may be the first
To take the first step
To the first level
You’ve created
It’s hard for a star to shine
When all the constellations
Crowd to close
And confuse the direction
Of your guiding northern lights
Just remember that you aren’t alone
You are my entire world and all I need
Is you(niverse)
And even when you get sucked into
A black hole
I’ll be there
Ready to give you back
Your asteroid quick laughter
Your heavens high intelligence
And solar glaring personality
When your face turns
Earthshine~

modern myths

this is a poem about a boy 
with a genetic predisposition 
to falling down stairs 
and a girl with a bloodstained
sweatshirt from wearing her heart
on her sleeve and the 
broken-record summer nights they spend 
against smudged orange interstate lighting, 
becoming black-hole outlines of themselves,
engine’s hum swallowing muttered dreams 
too painful to voice in the daylight—
kids with lofty ambitions and firestorm eyes 
cracking and fading like an old t-shirt graphic—
generation revolution, choking on wishing stars.

Your silhouette
was the last I saw of you
and the last I’ll ever see,
fading
into the sea-mist
as you stood on the boat
to be taken far away.
To take yourself far away,
with the ticket you had scraped for
deciding that it would be better than staying here.

Your silhouette was stained
with fish-and-chip grease
onto the day-old newspaper I found
that said that the boat had gone off course,
hit something and sunk.
Ever since,
your silhouette has followed me,
hiding in my peripheral vision,
and when I turn it’s gone,
just out of reach.

Should I have come too?
I’ll never know.

My life is similar
to how it was when you left–
for us it’s always similar, I think,
until it ends.
And it always ends.
It never fails to end
and turn us all into silhouettes
imprinted
on our loved ones’ souls.