First Place - Poetry Contest

T. S. Eliot

It's like when you're sleeping,
Though you're partly awake,
Dreaming a dream that
You want to escape.

But you just don't know how.
We all don't. Don't understand.

So this is my life:
Stuck between the conscious
And the oblivion.
The grip is so entrancing.

You are falling and not feeling,
Downward into the black tornado,
You know you're alive, but
Something in you has died.

You must keep trying.
You will fail, but you must. We all must.

And then you wake up
With a jump you'll regret,
Wishing you were back again,
Back were you might have been before.

He walks forward from
The light into your darkness.
He, like you, is alone.
He speaks slowly, pausing,
Recalling the forever embedded.
His are glassy, his pupils dilated.
He blinks, takes a deep breath,
And asks the question no one will answer.

Where is the life
We have lost in living?

written by Justin, Indian Hills High School