The Phantom is excited to announce the winners for this month's poetry contest! Thank you to everyone who submitted. Each and every piece was incredible! Now, drum roll please... congratulations to Eli Walker, Darby Bittle, and Patricia McCarthy for their beautiful works.
See below to read their poems 🡣
Middle Planet
by Eli Walker
I used to say planets were a ball of paint.
Thousands and thousands of layers of paint.
The innermost layer yellow, red, sometimes pink;
the shell--browns, to greens, to blues,
even some purple in there.
I used to say the Earth was the middle child.
Other planets being warm-colored or cool-colored
but never the Earth. Never outside the line.
Never being this or that, but being both,
right in the middle.
I used to be told my planet was too white.
Too white: Are you albino?
What’s your dad look like? Is that a wig?
Can you say the n-word?
Are you trying to be black?
As if I had woken up that morning,
deciding this paint or that paint, and picking white.
A planet’s innermost layer is yellow, red, sometimes pink.
Their shells brown, green, blue,
even some purple in there.
Their planet being warm-colored or cool-colored
but never mine. Never on the outside.
Never white or black, but being both,
right in the middle.
Betrayal in a White Cloak
by Darby Bittle
White is the color of purity.
But why not betrayal?
White is knuckles, firmly clenched
Bones tearing through the epidermis.
It’s the beautiful glow of a fire’s core
And burning yourself as you get too close.
It’s Leonardo chiseling marble.
Slipping up, and having to do it over.
It’s a gorgeous, pearly smile,
Soon a ferocious bite, full of malice.
White is the dress worn by Ophelia,
Hanging limply from a tree.
It’s the flash of a branch breaking
And that dress swelling with water
Dragging her to the rocky stream bed.
Her back scraping along quartz chunks.
White is the light of death.
Is death pure?
Or is it the greatest act of betrayal?
Your body giving out
As you follow the Reaper's alabaster glow.
Sugar on the Sidewalk
by Patricia McCarthy
And don’t you know I’m your resource?
Come here and drink my water.
Pluck the fruit of me
and cut down my jungle.
Turn me into plywood.
Build a house of me
and move out in five years
once you’ve gotten bored
and my roof starts to sink.
And I imagined it going down differently.
You in a yellow suit.
Long gray hair and brown eyes;
I steeped a cup of oolong
and turned off the light downstairs.
By the time I got back up,
you’ve already died.
Splayed across a pink leather sofa
with white buttons and corn snakes.
I’m nothing but a bitch to you now.
Run me over and tell me I wanted it,
and I’ll be swooped over in a green dress,
my spine arched like the number 7.
Do you remember the way I
held that orange with my blue nails;
we left the rinds on the sidewalk, and
the sun burned me up.
A handful of peanuts and a glass of oj.
Anything for my perfect baby,
go ahead and eat plastic
and thumb tacks like a little baby should.
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