Independent Schools Victoria Student Poetry Competition

Honourable Mention

In Year 10 Literature, we are very proud that Evelyn Le of 10T2 received an Honourable Mention in this year’s Independent Schools Victoria Student Poetry Competition, out of over 1300 entries.

All Things Bleed the Same Red

Evelyn Le

They look at me as if I’m some sort of murderer

I’ve just killed their daughter.

The thing that stands is just some corpse-

It rots, puppeted by a thousand writhing worms,

And the obligation-

Existence is just something we owe.

Inside, the grave rot crawls

The sweet stench spreads

Further, like sickly vines

The coffin full of heads

On it goes-

The spokes of the wheel like spinning suns

All too holy, all too distant

The rim like a serpent choking on its own tail

Each scale a face-

I count eight billion.

They take me for a pessimist.

I can’t see God

I can’t find the time

I can’t I can’t I can’t

Seem to find my mind

Every year, the corpse writhes a little less

The creature seems to be stilling

The hunt- the metamorphosis

Carving open flesh

To see beneath

The skin, a cloth that obfuscates

The wear and tear

The illusion of a human being

I’ve had to kill her

I’ve got to have buried the girl

Passing by another year

Again, the mirror the mirror the mirror

The eyes, the lips, the nose-

My dear enemy

Spring seems to be coming to a close.

I am in a constant limbo

Of dying and coming back

The person waking up in the morning

Is a different woman.

It becomes some kind of murder.

The picture on the mantel seems to be brand new.

Little girl in a white dress

It screams,

It’s you, it’s you, it's you.

Outside the frame,

The killer.

I think my mother has already laid the flowers on my grave.