'Verse in the Valley' Middle School Winners

The winners of the Scotts Valley Arts Commission’s annual “Verse in the Valley” poetry contest were announced at a June 6 city council meeting. There are first, second and third place winners in five different age group categories and a first place winner in the class poem category.

Scotts Valley Patch will run the winning poems in each category throughout the week. Today, we have the middle school category winners. To read the kindergarten through third-grade and class poem category winners, click here. And to read the fourth- through fifth-grade category winners, click .

First Place—Lili Manzo

“The Hours Are Decaying”

Sitting, hunched over on a stool.

Her back crooked,

Bent,

Broken.

Doing pointless things on her laptop.

Eyes glazed over,

Slowly losing their light.

Images flashing in front of her slack face:

Her life.

Head down, pen clutched in

Twisted fingers,

Fingers that look shattered,

Crushed,

Abused.

Fingers that illustrate creations;

She can barely see them.

Her eyes have lost their light.

The creations no longer have meaning

To anyone

But her.

Tapping nails

Clicking on the surface of an iPad:

The only source of light.

Knees bent in an effort to fit in the cramped chair.

Not moving for hours,

Days,

Years.

Numbers at the top of the screen,

Getting higher, then lower,

In an infinite cycle.

Time passes.

She doesn’t notice.

When she awakens from her mindless stupor,

Her once-dull eyes regain a spark;

It glimmers faintly in the darkness.

She straightens herself from the stool.

She drops the pen from her fingers.

She looks at the clock.

Realizes her life has been wasted.

Desperately wishes she could get back.

Second Place—Taryn Segal

“Raven’s Glare”

Black as the night, you’re too afraid to look it in the eye,

The raven can see right through you

He knows you have told a lie.

Trying to act natural as the raven stares you down,

Not even you can deny,

The secrets that crawl underneath your skin

The alarm sounds by the raven’s caw,

Tens of thousands swarm in, all due to one awful sin.

What goes around comes around,

You will reap just what you sow.

But that is something only a raven would know.

Third Place—Madi Volk

“High Head Rose”

Carrying one hundred times my weight

Trying to keep up with the troop

She stands overhead

With a magnifying glass

The heat swells, she embodies the marching ants

Picking off ten at a time

With a single step

The whole world crashes until we crawl

Without a lion’s confidence

Without a mouse’s dignity

She hides

She wears jeans too tight to keep blood pumping

She teepees the hearts of many

Leaving a large mess

No one knows how to clean it up

No one is willing to try

The world stops turning

The warmth leaves

Sunlight seeps out of my pores

I freeze along with everything I love

In a deep cavern everything I fear rests

She lives here

My chest pains, with thoughts of what I used to know

I reach for the sword of compassion

Hacking at what keeps me up at night

Finally I escape

Returning to the world I once knew

I wasn’t fighting with her, but myself

Still holding my head high

Salutary looks pass in all directions

Hisses of pompous little girls

The words repeat over

“You are not worthy”

Give me a white rose

I continue to hold head high