Last week, I was thrilled to find out that I had won Spellbinder Magazines annual poetry contest. The theme of the contest was “Stories of Hidden Shadows.” Read more about the contest here and also take part of the amazing story by Leslie Wilber who won the prose category of the competition.
This is my winning poem:
You Never Really Left
You never really left,
you’re still floating in my space.
Passing through walls like a memory kept.
Echoes of stories we shared before bed.
Like a ghost you simmer above my skin.
Whispering things that are better left unsaid.
“Tell me to go and I’ll leave straight away.”
But I don’t have the heart, there’s still space for you left.
Under creaking floorboards where I walk at night.
I prepared you a room where you can safely rest.
Reflections on loss and memory
I resonated with the theme of the contest on a personal level. Having lost someone and feeling how their prescence lingers and fills your space with shared memories, not being able to completely cut ties. I wanted to highlight the complexity of grief where the absent are never truly gone.
The metaphor of floating in the background and passing through walls signifies how memories can transcend physical separation. I wanted to write about the tension between the desire to let go and the inability to do so.
The space beneath the floorboards at the end acknowledges that while the person may be gone, their influence remains deeply embedded in your life
With this poem, I wanted to write about the complex emotions surrounding loss. The aim was to explore memory, presence, and the nature of grief. Because in the wise words that I picked up from the tv-series Wandavision:
“What is grief, if not love perservering?”
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