The Write Stuff Contest Winner: "Body Speak" by James Ellerbe

Congratulations to our first Write Stuff Contest winner, James Ellerbe! Her winning entry - a poem titled "Body Speaks" - is featured below, as well as the names and titles of our two honorable mentions. Thanks again to everyone who submitted! We loved reading your pieces.

"Body Speaks" by James Ellerbe

Pressure on the limbs, the skull,
moving, through and out.
A release and then the cold,
singing life and air
into the blood.
Warmth and beats
of rhythm not unlike
her own.
An answer to
her cry, pangs of
need met graciously,
with pangs of my own.
Life, loud and bright.

Limbs like lines,
strong and straight,
but certainly
uncertain
like the others, too.
Anxious and tired
with all the energy
of the world,
compact.
Hungry and eager
but frightened
of the joy
that sears
the years
of youth.

Unsure of how
to move with
new and shapely
hips and mouths and eyes.
A new kind of need
that exhilirates
and terrifies
in equal measure.
Opening and fearless,
timid and missing
the days of certain
uncertainty.
The first of firsts,
the last of
wondering.

A picture on a screen
of a life
that lives, quiet
and louder than
anything has ever been.
A new you.
A whole new thing.
Pushing, pulling
tearing, crying,
like lightening
and fire
and the sun
that shines.

Rest and wake
and move and
drink and live and
love and shout
and cry and laugh
and tremble and curse
because it's all the things
you want and more
and less and nothing.

All lines again, but bent
and worn and deep
this time. Strange
and forgetful,
but familiar.
Pain that cannot
be unfelt or felt,
a maddening, glorious
passage.
Goodbye
escapes into a
life, loud and bright.

Honorable Mentions:
"You and Me: The Prologue" by Minna Dubin - Creative Non-Fiction
"Tell Me Lies" by Vickie McEntire - Creative Non-Fiction