Poetry Contest Prompt – June 2025

This Isn’t a Mask [Tania Bilal]

They dressed me in pink and called it love.
But no one told me how to breathe inside it.
I held a flower, it died in my hand.
Like everything they swore would stay.

This Isn’t a Mask [Tania Bilal]

They dressed me in pink and called it love.
But no one told me how to breathe inside it.
I held a flower, it died in my hand.
Like everything they swore would stay.

They said, smile,
so I wore a skull.
It fit better than my own face ever did.

That thing at my feet?
Screaming without sound.
I stopped looking away years ago.

The sky never moves, it presses.
Heavy, Watching, Judging.
Like they did when I broke,
and they didn’t.

I play alone.
But this isn’t a game.
This is how I exist now.

You call it a mask?
I call it skin.
And no one’s coming to take it off.

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Title: Dream
I had a dream when I was four.
I was in a vast field, on my own.
I heard cries around me,
Yelling, where is she?
I followed the voices,
Taking each step with trouble
Until I found my moth

Title: Dream
I had a dream when I was four.
I was in a vast field, on my own.
I heard cries around me,
Yelling, where is she?
I followed the voices,
Taking each step with trouble
Until I found my mother.
Sitting on a marigold covered land,
Clutching my father’s tree-trunk hand.
I ran to them and CRRAAASSSSHH,
I was thrown away with a flash.
And when I called their names
I saw them burning in flames.
They wept and wept, yelling,
“Where is she?”
To wipe tears from my eyes,
I touched it with my palm,
A mass of solid that I didn’t recognise.
A marigold from the other side flies,
Quietly announcing my rise.

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Skull-cup. Not hiding. Drinking sky.
Why does the warm light make the shadows cry?
Sun-gold sticky on my cheek like tears I didn’t shed.
Shadows? Not dancing. Feeding.

They chirped “She p

Skull-cup. Not hiding. Drinking sky.
Why does the warm light make the shadows cry?
Sun-gold sticky on my cheek like tears I didn’t shed.
Shadows? Not dancing. Feeding.

They chirped “She plays!” A lie. Thin air.
This mask is the face. The truth laid bare.
My whisper rattled older than the dirt:
“Sweet Death, you are the only home that doesn’t hurt.”

Marigold. Crushed in my living fist.
Not funeral flower. Furnace. Coals that hissed
against the graveyard chill. See how it burns
orange fury where the cold earth turns?
This bloom eats decay. Makes sweetness from the end.
A scream in petal form. My only friend.

Bare earth. Hungry sky. And Me.
Not standing. Rooted. Twisted like the tree
that cracks the tomb. I hear the silence roar –
the sound beneath all sounds, behind the door
no one dares open. The hum inside the bone.

Is Death the naked face when Life’s paint’s gone?
Or is this pulse, this hot and messy now,
just Death playing dress-up? Taking its last bow
before the final curtain? Childhood’s cruelest art:
a beating heart locked in a cage of beating heart.

Alone? The skull grinned back. Its hollow gaze
knew every secret, sun forgot to raise.
We played a game with rules written in ash:
each step I took, a desperate, hopeful crash
against the void. Each breath a gamble thrown.
Not with God. As god. On a throne of bone,
building a kingdom where the ending’s the seed.
Where playing with Death is the only way to bleed alive.

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The Girl Who Danced with Shadows

There once was a girl in a coral-pink dress,
Who played in a world full of beauty and mess,
With mountains behind her and sky overhead,
She danced with the livi

The Girl Who Danced with Shadows

There once was a girl in a coral-pink dress,
Who played in a world full of beauty and mess,
With mountains behind her and sky overhead,
She danced with the living, she danced with the dead.

Her mask wasn’t scary, though others might think,
It smiled up at her with a curious wink,
“Hello there,” she whispered, “you’re part of me too,
The shadow that follows in all that I do.”

Some people run fast when they see their dark side,
They push it away, they attempt to hide,
But this little girl in her bright sunny clothes
Said, “Friend, you’re as real as a butterfly’s pose.”

She picked up her mask with her small gentle hands,
Like shells from the shore or like toys in the sand,
“We all have our darkness, our fears and our pain,
But they’re just as much us as sunshine and rain.”

The clouds swirled above her in gray, blue, and white,
Like thoughts in our minds in the day and the night,
Sometimes they’re stormy, sometimes they’re clear,
But under them all, we are still standing here.

So when you feel lonely or lost in the dark,
Remember this girl in her bright meadow park,
Who taught us that wholeness means holding it all—
The light and the shadow, the big and the small.

For life isn’t perfect, and neither are we,
But that’s what makes us beautifully free,
To dance with our demons, to play with our pain,
And find that through darkness, we’re sunshine again.

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In shadows deep where silence dwells,
A girl walks slow where sorrow swells.
Her face is bone, her gaze is none,
A mask beside her- games begun.

No eyes to see,no tears to shed,
She dances soft with

In shadows deep where silence dwells,
A girl walks slow where sorrow swells.
Her face is bone, her gaze is none,
A mask beside her- games begun.

No eyes to see,no tears to shed,
She dances soft with dreams long dead.
The mask once smiled,now cracked and gray,
She holds it close,then looks away.

She hums a tune no one can hear,
A lullaby to hush her fear.
Among the ghosts,she finds her grace,
A flower wilts upon her face.

The world forgets, but she remains
A fleeting wisp in death’s domains.
She skips through time in silent moan,
A child of dusk,who plays alone.

No footsteps mark the dirt she treads,
Just whispers where her laughter bled.
Yet in the dark,her story clings-
A girl of bones, of broken things.

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Unnamed,Unbroken

They gave her a face carved in bone,
a hollow smile—too wide, too still.
She wore it well, as children do,
obedient to the silence,
to the chill.
She clutched a stem of sunlight
in

Unnamed,Unbroken

They gave her a face carved in bone,
a hollow smile—too wide, too still.
She wore it well, as children do,
obedient to the silence,
to the chill.
She clutched a stem of sunlight
in hands too small to hold the world,
and stood upon a trembling dream
where shadows twist
and teeth unfurl.
No one asked her
if she liked the mask,
if it scratched when she breathed,
or if the weight of dead expressions
made her neck ache.
She learned to speak without speaking,
to bow her head just enough,
not in shame,
but so the skull wouldn’t slip
and show the child underneath.
The sky above her was heavy,
painted with prayers
that went unanswered.
Clouds that held her tears—
each one swollen,
waiting, waiting,
waiting to rage down.
To take down everything
that ever held her captive.
Would this rain drown the oppressors?
Or wash her dreams away?
Or would it give life—
to the barren land
she stands upon,
where the death of one dream
lets another bloom?
They called her brave.
They called her beautiful.
They called her everything but real.
They never called her by her name.
And though her eyes
were hidden behind bone,
if you looked long enough,
you’d see the flicker—
that tiny, defiant ember—
of a girl still burning.

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She carved God’s eyes with a butter knife
Fed them to rats they squealed with life
His tongue still twitched so she sucked it clean
Spat in His mouth
“How’s that for serene?”

Melinda’s

She carved God’s eyes with a butter knife
Fed them to rats they squealed with life
His tongue still twitched so she sucked it clean
Spat in His mouth
“How’s that for serene?”

Melinda’s corpse wore Mother’s face
She smelled like piss and playground grace
She broke his fingers one by one
And whispered “This is how it’s done

God came down She cracked His knees
“BLESS ME DADDY” She aimed to please
He moaned like pigs outside the shed
So she kissed His brain and tore His head

The mask still grins with holy spit
She held the flower, falling from her fist
She ate the hymns she burned the throne
Now God is dead and she plays alone

So pull the trigger and roll the dice
If it’s a six She kills Him twice

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ASURA – For being a girl

Genesis of a girl child;
Being an ASURA girl
Consider herself a curse, a burden
And a misfortune for the family.
As a teen, she might be killed either for

ASURA – For being a girl

Genesis of a girl child;
Being an ASURA girl
Consider herself a curse, a burden
And a misfortune for the family.
As a teen, she might be killed either for honor or land;
Reflecting to display her as a bondmaid to satisfy all;
Today, with the progression of technology
Is the meaning of being a girl child change;
Nope,
The girl has to play alone in all stages;
As a protagonist, she showcases her prominence in every decision
But not in all her life choices;
Her marital status still;
Her emblem of success.
But now, she agreed to wear that death mask
First, by choosing herself
As a BELLONNA to endure
With defined margins
Not an ASURA
Anymore…

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“The Girl Who Played With Shadows”

She wore a skull not out of fright,
But as a shield from day to night.
A flower clasped in trembling hand,
Alone she stood, too young to stand.

The wor

“The Girl Who Played With Shadows”

She wore a skull not out of fright,
But as a shield from day to night.
A flower clasped in trembling hand,
Alone she stood, too young to stand.

The world had teeth beneath its grin,
She met it masked, with paper skin.
No lullabies, no dolls or swings,
Just ghosts that tugged on broken strings.

Her laughter echoed in the dirt,
A child-shaped echo wrapped in hurt.
The sky hung heavy, low, and wide,
Yet no one asked what lived inside.

The mask became her second skin,
A wall to keep the sorrow in.
The monster’s face beside her feet—
Was not the worst she’d ever meet.

She danced with shadows in the dust,
Spoke only when she had to trust.
A child? Perhaps. But braver still,
To name her fears—and then sit still.

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An Untold Story

Beyond the mask, a story’s disclosed
Of grins that suppress, and sobs that unfold
A pretence of courage, a heart that’s sore
A wish for care, and someone to adore

She wea

An Untold Story

Beyond the mask, a story’s disclosed
Of grins that suppress, and sobs that unfold
A pretence of courage, a heart that’s sore
A wish for care, and someone to adore

She wears a veil, of bliss and cheer
But under the facade, sentiment fear
To be exposed, to be seen, to be known
For scare of judgment, and a heart turned to stone

She’s a paradox, of toughness and weakness
A woman who’s brave, yet trying to impress
She conceals her pain, behind a decorated smile
And sighs “I’m fine” in a lonely while

But deep inside, she’s screaming for care
For someone to look, above the mask she wears
She craves to escape, to smash the chains,
But keeps going, with heart in pains.

The bruised mask shields, her feelings deep,
As she survives, in this place she’d rather sleep.
Yearn to locate a way, to crack the glass,
And rise above, this suffocating pass.

Alesha Khan

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“She Plays Where Silence Grows”

She plays where silence chokes the air,
Beneath a sky too bruised to care.
Her mask, a grin of hollow bone,
A child’s face carved in silent stone.

T

“She Plays Where Silence Grows”

She plays where silence chokes the air,
Beneath a sky too bruised to care.
Her mask, a grin of hollow bone,
A child’s face carved in silent stone.

The field is ash, the flowers fake,
A bloom she holds for memory’s sake.
Beside her, teeth and eyes gone wild—
The monster mask of a forgotten child.

No birds, no breeze, just dust and dread,
She walks where dreams and death have bled.
The clouds wear faces lost to light,
The world too dim for day or night.

Still, she stands—hope clenched and thin,
A ghost who dares to play again.

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I Grew Into the Mask

I didn’t know what it was
When they tied it to my face.
It smelled like old rain
and something no one dared to bury.
They told me I was playing—
But the ground kept still,
an

I Grew Into the Mask

I didn’t know what it was
When they tied it to my face.
It smelled like old rain
and something no one dared to bury.
They told me I was playing—
But the ground kept still,
and the colors around me
felt like lies told to children
to keep them from asking
Why did the laughter stop?
I stood in the middle of the day
And it still felt like dusk.
No footsteps, no calling voice.
Only the hum of breath
beneath the dirt.
I learned how not to hope out loud.
This face they gave me—
It does not hide me.
It teaches me how to stay
When everything else leaves.

-Zaryab Fatima

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Playtime

She wears a skull to hide her face,
A child alone in death’s embrace.
No giggles rise, no games are shared,
Just silent fields and skies that stare.

A flower clutched in fragile hand,
She

Playtime

She wears a skull to hide her face,
A child alone in death’s embrace.
No giggles rise, no games are shared,
Just silent fields and skies that stare.

A flower clutched in fragile hand,
She waits where ghosts and dreamers stand.
The mask, too big, her eyes still peer—
Half made of wonder, half of fear.

A playmate lies with hollow grin,
Its painted tongue, its paper skin.
A world too old for one so small,
Yet here she stands, in death’s soft thrall.

She plays alone, the sky turns gray,
No one to chase, no songs to say.
But in her stillness, something speaks—
Of masks we wear, of truths we seek.

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I’d cry out loud
Even shout your name
Above the dead man’s gore
Away, far and beyond
Till my child can revere
The by-gone dawns
And I’d chant marigolds
To make you a bed
And the wind

I’d cry out loud
Even shout your name
Above the dead man’s gore
Away, far and beyond
Till my child can revere
The by-gone dawns
And I’d chant marigolds
To make you a bed
And the winds all pink
Will whirl you ahead
In its arms…
Never to rest!!
I’ll lit up the candles
And prepare warm food
To live your chuckles
One last time…
My beloved child,
I grieve in you
My own childhood
All lost in time.

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Hollow and in-between
For this pain to transform into peace
I know, is an unlikely illusion
I would even settle for it as it is
Suffering has a center
Unlike me, hollow in between

Tell me tales of

Hollow and in-between
For this pain to transform into peace
I know, is an unlikely illusion
I would even settle for it as it is
Suffering has a center
Unlike me, hollow in between

Tell me tales of when it all was real
The spectrum bookended with everything in between
The pinnacle of joy is not what I ask for
Simply give me something to feel
Tell me tales of when it was real

Break my bones, if you will
Don’t let them medicate away
The suffering, the distinction
Between being human and being a vessel
For experiments of the mind
Break my bones, I hope you will

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I wear a red mask, a fiery disguise
Anger and pain, a burning surprise
Familiar hell, a cycle I know
Filling others’ voids, my heart’s an empty show

I hide my true self, behind this mask’s mig

I wear a red mask, a fiery disguise
Anger and pain, a burning surprise
Familiar hell, a cycle I know
Filling others’ voids, my heart’s an empty show

I hide my true self, behind this mask’s might
A shield to protect, from the darkness of night
No gentle touch, no loving gaze
I’m lost, alone, in this endless maze

A black sheep in wolf’s clothing, I roam
Surviving each day, in this emotional home
I yearn to break free, from this mask’s tight hold
To reveal my true self, and let my heart unfold

I’m angry at myself, at the world’s cold stare
At those who fear to touch, to love, to care
Perhaps I’m a muse, for others to see
A loner, lost, in this world of anonymity

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Title: Rendezvous at the Detention Center

I was born in the Red Sea,
the one that cut my mother open,
and took her years to recover from,
and now I live in stasis,
on the brink of m

Title: Rendezvous at the Detention Center

I was born in the Red Sea,
the one that cut my mother open,
and took her years to recover from,
and now I live in stasis,
on the brink of mass extinction,
in lieu of the killings,
in lieu of starvation,
we lose ourselves a little every day,
faster than the tear gas that hits our civilians.

You know the castle walls by heart,
brick-by-brick, they will tear them down,
you know where you put your money,
piece-by-piece, they will strip you of it,
and check for ripeness against your skull,
then proceed to tap it,
so the metal bit drills into your head,
and it’s not only the rebels that say,
drill, baby, drill.
It’s in the air,
so drill, baby, drill.

Mineral oil is our beverage of choice,
on the rocks,
as it starts to melt,
slick,
sliding against my cold skin,
there are animals dying,
but the water is cold against my skin,
and I don’t have enough money to care,
there are babies starving to death,
there are babies starving,
babies starving,
dying,
and all I care about is money,
fairy tales of eternal economic growth.

Do you believe in fairies?
Yes.
Bob-cut senators in suits. Yes.
The winged ones died when I turned 18,
because a child shouldn’t be worried,
about children his age dying,
while he gets to go to school,
and study about photosynthesis,
and fascism,
from some world war,
while you use eleven million of your dollars,
and kill,
to try and wipe us off the planet.

Clean, brand spankin new Earth,
you pile up the trash and send it elsewhere,
like my rendezvous at the detention center,
brutal, hungry, desolate,
the people are on fire,
they demand justice,
dulled in retribution,
you make your bed,
every night,
and they’ll make you lay in it.

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She Plays Alone

In her fist, a wilted bloom,
petals softer than the lies he crooned
She wore a skull to feel less seen,
a girl turned ghost in a porcelain sheen.

The wind hums lull

She Plays Alone

In her fist, a wilted bloom,
petals softer than the lies he crooned
She wore a skull to feel less seen,
a girl turned ghost in a porcelain sheen.

The wind hums lullabies through bone,
no mother calls, no God, no home.
The monster grins beside her feet,
a lover’s face where death and shadow meet.

He watched, always watched, through mirrored night,
love curling sharp like serpent’s bite.
“I’ll find you,” he breathed through time and skin
and she, unblinking, let him in.

Not all cages come with keys,
some hearts shatter willingly.
She plays alone, yet never quite,
haunted hands still hold her tight.

So dance, little doll, with silence sewn,
You were never truly on your own.

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Will you stay?
For a while, to play with me?
As the home became empty from time to time,
Even happiness left the place that once aligned.
I forgot how to laugh, as no one was there to hear.
I started

Will you stay?
For a while, to play with me?
As the home became empty from time to time,
Even happiness left the place that once aligned.
I forgot how to laugh, as no one was there to hear.
I started living in so much fear.
Started becoming friends with the ghosts that haunt,
Served them tea and made promises to stay along.
Light faded away, just like people from my life—
Accompanied by ghosts and dolls as friends.
Thunder sometimes scares me so much,
I hide myself in a long coat for my father’s touch.
Every night, I wear the death mask tight,
Pretending it’s a game, hoping to stay alive.
Telling stories to the ones who can’t speak,
Longing for someone who can play or stay with me.
Always rejected, always left unseen.
Will I ever find someone
Or live with a death mask and shattered dreams?

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Who am I?

I do not know
who I am.
I have masks
many of them.
I use them often,
I use them much.
I do not know
my true face.
It has been so long
It has been so long.
I know it would,
the scari

Who am I?

I do not know
who I am.
I have masks
many of them.
I use them often,
I use them much.
I do not know
my true face.
It has been so long
It has been so long.
I know it would,
the scariest of all;
my true face
to know who I am.
I do not want to know,
what I am.

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I feel the weeds. Soft against my fingers. I should move. I can’t
I stand in the dirt. MY feet wet. I should walk. I can’t.
I smell dried blood. I want to clean it. I should clean it. I ca

I feel the weeds. Soft against my fingers. I should move. I can’t
I stand in the dirt. MY feet wet. I should walk. I can’t.
I smell dried blood. I want to clean it. I should clean it. I can’t.
Do I see me? Is that me?
I hear a shout. Loud NO. It’s not you. It’s a mask.
Take it off? I should. I can’t.
My hands frozen. My feet stuck. I should move. I can’t.
I smell it again. Dried Blood. I should walk. I can’t.
I walk. Small steps. I can do this. I haven’t moved.
I WALK. SMALL STEPS. I CAN DO THIS. I can’t move.
I hurt. I scream. WAKE UP.
I should wake up. I can’t wake up.
I should. I can’t
I SHOULD. I CAN’T.
I was already awake.

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A Flower in the Graveyard

She walked where stillness grew like weeds,
among the shadows, no one feeds.
Her hands were small, but held the weight
of things too dark to name as fate.

A mask of bone

A Flower in the Graveyard

She walked where stillness grew like weeds,
among the shadows, no one feeds.
Her hands were small, but held the weight
of things too dark to name as fate.

A mask of bones, a borrowed face,
to fit into a stranger’s place.
She wore it like a second skin
the world too loud, too sharp, too thin.

No lullabies, no skipping song,
just twinging winds that pulled too long.
Yet in her grip, a flower’s stem,
as if she’d stolen light from them.

She did not run, she did not hide
she stood where even echoes died.
And there, in the middle of the cold and gray,
a fragile bloom refused decay.

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Will you play with me?

Last one to leave the nest.
I saw all the birds flew.
Opportunities lurk on their horizon.
Another sky hosts their welcome.
I am stuck, in the house; once called home.
More bre

Will you play with me?

Last one to leave the nest.
I saw all the birds flew.
Opportunities lurk on their horizon.
Another sky hosts their welcome.
I am stuck, in the house; once called home.
More breathes taken than left.
Shriveled like prunes, a couple who gave birth sleeps.
I sit lonely as a cloud.
Many years before I can pave my way and touch the sky.
No one to play with.
I try to make those lifeless bodies laugh, till their consciousness fades in a slumber.
Will they wake up again?
Last born’s final attempt to find the elixir of life, playing with the mask of death, wishing that parents age a century.

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4 am story
As I sit here in this immense dark
Around 4 am, I hear that knock
I wonder if it is an illusion
Or if it is that ghost of the past
So I let it in, and it sits beside me
It digs up my old wo

4 am story
As I sit here in this immense dark
Around 4 am, I hear that knock
I wonder if it is an illusion
Or if it is that ghost of the past
So I let it in, and it sits beside me
It digs up my old wounds like an old friend
And haunts me until I fall apart
At the crack of dawn, it leaves me alone
So I gather the pieces of mine that fell apart
And I continue to live as if nothing happened at all
Use that fake smile as a concealer for cracks and scars
But again, as I sit in immense dark
Around 4 am, I hear that knock

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(My savior?)

Would you do anything?
When I’ m lost in my scars.
Would you come to save me?
Or what would you do?

Would you hug me?
Would you hold my trembling hands?
Would you stare at my tear

(My savior?)

Would you do anything?
When I’ m lost in my scars.
Would you come to save me?
Or what would you do?

Would you hug me?
Would you hold my trembling hands?
Would you stare at my teary eyes?
Or would you see me in the silence?

The silence for which no one talks about,
The loudest silence that says everything.
Everything that a tongue could never say,
But a heart that can’t stop saying.

But! Nothing matters before one thing,
Would you do anything?
Would you comfort my aching heart?
Or would you leave me with my burning scars?

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