Yesterday, we began publishing the winners of the first annual poetry contest for juveniles in secure facilities, hosted by the Center for Educational Excellence in Alternative Settings. The response was tremendous; the center received more than 1,000 submissions were entered in the contest.
Yesterday we ran the Third Place winners. Today, The Imprint is proud to publish the Second-Place winners:
Poem Title: Dear You
Poet: Alina
Facility: Champaign County Juvenile Detention Center, Urbana, IL
Judge: Chelsea Clinton
Dear Xanax bars,
Please take me to Mars,
Where I don’t have to do a thing for
KLONDIKE BARS!
Dear Spoon,
Will you take me to the moon?
Turn this filthy world into a cartoon?
Dear Dope,
You fill me with hope
Have me wrapped around your finger
Tied with a rope.
Dear Me,
Is this who you really want to be?
Locked into drugs
With no key?
Poem Title: The Meek and Humble Shall Inherit this Earth
Poet: Angel
Facility: Nancy B. Jefferson Alternative H.S., Chicago, IL
Judge: John S. Blake
In night filled alleys
Where rats scurry
over broken glass
You find her
The queen
Strung out
naked
blanketed only by stars
raped by life
scrubbed clean
till bones show
her limp body lies
mother earth comforts her
whispering sweet nothings
that sound like something
when you want them to
need them to
police drive upon her with midnight stares
they look at her
that prevalent object
just sprawling there
knights in shadows match their stare
young men
rejected citizenship elsewhere
stand in her defense
with 45s
knives
bottles
bricks
& souls as shields.
Tonight they lay their lives to rest
for these streets are our kingdom
59th street
Poem Title: Untitled
Poet: Marc
Facility: Minard E. Hulse Juvenile Detention Center, Vernon Hills, IL
Judge: Bryonn Baine
As I’m thinkin’ for a second
My life is not perfected
My life is kinda hectic
But I don’t know what wrecked it
It’s probably my mom doing drugs when I was younger
The stuff that she had snorted in front of me and my brothers
She needed a needle when we had needed a mother
And then she got the nerve to ask us why we don’t love her?
I think it’s crazy
How she callin’ me her baby
When lately
She hasn’t been around to see me grow and changing
It kinda broke my heart
When I look back at the start
Man I turned the things to light when everything turned to dark
So now they call me Marc,
hope they remember my name
Cuz once I’m up in the game
It’s never gonna be the same
So I sit back and kinda thank my mom for what she did
Cuz I got the lyrics of an adult but I’m still just a kid
Poem Title: “Nothing’s Respite” from a Land that Never Was
Poet: Conan
Facility: Juvenile Detention Center Clearwater, FL
Judge: R. Dwayne Betts
I wish my parents could see,
The cause of all these changes in me
Is the ignition point of my family tree.
I wish my sisters could know,
The reason why my reaction is slow
Is because I grew on my very own bough.
I wish my family could see,
That all these changes weren’t meant for me,
And just like the child I intended to be,
I’m chained to the abyss, and I’m not sure,
About whether or not I even want to be free.
Because I know no matter how much I try to flee,
All these chains and shackles keep restraining me.
For I’m not the silver seraph, I’m not the one with the key.
My wings rusted away so many years ago,
Silver doesn’t fare well with my wet tears’ flow,
But the winds of change decided with fate, so
I’m so sorry I’m gone, I’m so sorry I’m dead.
I tried to go places no one’s dared to tread.
I went to purgatory to fix myself, but I fell
All the way down to the last pit of hell.
As I was sitting waist deep in ice-cold fire,
My rage flowed into this bright red pyre,
And tossed my soul away like a worn out tire.
So now that I’m a demon with horns and all,
I can hear that dark wolf resound its call.
An angel flew down and gave me some mercy,
But all I did in return, was take its glowing soul,
My rage was burning inside, like an ember sea.
My heart turned cold as such is the toll,
For drinking innocence like emerald tea.
But as it beat its lust, it threw some pity,
And sent me a girl who wasn’t used to hell city.
I couldn’t take her warmth for my own love’s forlorn,
Dear God save me, I’m a glitch, I wasn’t meant to be born.
My very mind, my soul, even my body is torn.
I can’t go back to the light, happiness is just too foreign.
Oh no, I’ve left them all on their own, all crying,
Because they see what I am, all those who are crying,
My leather wings let loose, in my moments of dying.
Heaven’s wrath returned, Hell’s fury incurred,
I betrayed them both: the light and the dark.
As I apologize to her, my words are all slurred,
I’m taken by the beauty of her angelic wings.
They’re beautiful and bright, and colorful like a bird.
She changed my un-life, made me a phantom,
She took off my mask, in return for one,
She hid me away, off into the opera,
Now I write from another prison, for my precious Christine.
Poem Title: Black White I am Both
Poet: Marcus
Facility: Charles H. Hickey, Jr. School, Parkville, MD
Judge: R. Dwayne Betts
black white I am both
oppressed but free
bound to be an outcast
black white I am both
look into the mirror
was ‘up my nigga
I’m proud of you
am I wrong for loving myself
black white I am both
I speak two languages
both English but both different
slang, hip-hop, shackles, bullets
the streets
business, college, caucasian, country
black white I am both
I am to be judged by both
cultures
why do I speak proper, why
do I live life in a beat
look into the mirror I bet
you see color
but black white I am both
ink on my skin
fashion designers matter
Polo, Lacoste, Levi, Trus
but I enjoy books, absorbing
knowledge, poetry, math
black white I am both
I cry as you do I bleed
as you do
I fight as you do I
run as you do
I’m used to the names
it’s sad that they come
from both sides
I’m not white enough not
black enough
but black white I am both