Skip to main content

Contest winners

CoastPride/Coastal Literary Arts Movement poetry contest

Entrants from three coastside schools submitted work to our poetry contest honoring the Cabrillo Unififed School District declaration of October as LGBTQ History Month. This is the winning entry, by Elizabeth Manteja, a student at Pescadero High School.

Poem

Pulling shadows from the corners
I wrapped myself in the forest
Nestling deeper
The folded dreams
Feet twirled on wooden floor
Castaway melody hanging on the morning fog
Laughing, I’m awake
The silence brings me shades of purple
Or who knows what;
It’s been too long
for me to tell
Who I am
What I am not
We wander too long
To ask
How to fall back
Flowered
She brightly stepped
Five words
To my first
Washed by summer
Orchestras bloomed
Under my fingers, voices
Hers and mine
Imploded
I wonder what was left
But this was far away
From home
From invisibility
And purples royal pink
Spilled carelessly over oceans
Over me
I tripped over thousand mile twirls
Back where I really
Slipped
Still storming
I sit
The thunder thumbs the rhythm
But I don’t care
To look up
Rainbow girl,
She whispers