2026 Competition

Your luscious hair cascaded down your rosy face,

while we walked intertwined and swaying to your favourite place.

You twirled the psychedelic daisy between your pale fingers, 

while the scent of your woodsy aftershave still lingered.

I think about that day,

In the balmy summer night of long-lost May.

Only now, I hold a pallid daisy at your grave, 

wishing we were listening to your favourite song.

I hoped to get one last goodbye,

To hear one last “I love you”.

But I could only muster a shaky sigh.

And remembered how you said I was made for you.

I reminisce our youth as it flew by as fast as your car,

And how we whispered, unbeknownst to our parents, how we’d run away so far.

I miss the mornings we’d wake so warm to.

Now I dream of the minuscule things you used to do,

I miss you, I love you, I want you back,

But all that I’m met with is the warmth I lack.

I talk to myself in hopes you’ll reply,

But I ponder and ask why you had to die.

I’ll forever deny that you’re gone, 

But I realise that I am the one that has to mow the lawn.

Why’d you go so soon?

Why’d you decorate the sky at noon?

I’ll go to your grave tomorrow with the coach,

With the flowers I have poached,

While listening to a melody of us.

The cracks of silence 

The house was empty, 

the drive way desolate. 

The essence of them drifting away, 

And my letters written. 

Each reluctant footstep echoed, 

Each breath screamed like a caged tiger,

Each blink rattled against my ear drums, 

and every dry swallow bounced off the walls. 

With tremoring hands I picked up the flower, 

wilting in my slender fingers. 

A tear solemnly slithered down my pale cheek, 

hitting the unfurling petals, 

But all I could see was my dystopian reflection. 

The house once full of life, 

engulfed in a dark cloud, 

pleading to be let out, 

But it could only ricochet its emptiness, 

Through the cracks of silence.

Anya’s poem was inspired by her afternoon with Daljit Nagra at Ware Poets in October 2026.