I did enter my first ever competition and I was proud of myself for ‘turning up’. I had read it a thousand times perpetually distracted looking for spelling errors and grammar issues. Then, feeling fairly ok with it, I submitted it.

Then about three days later I went back and read it… And I’d repeated two words twice and that had damaged the flow of the poem. And, of course, then I noticed some idiosyncrasies with it. Then I realised that it contained fatal flaws and that there was no hope in hell of it even being taken remotely seriously. So! Rather than wait to be told it was either shit or ineffective – I’ve corrected what I could and posted it as I would have wanted it to vaguely be.

Armed with Paper

Strong prisons can have paper bars

Creating books with empty memoirs

And blackout ceilings of Latin Decrees

Where only the poor are cut off at the knees

Exempting only inmates of bloodied Titles

Conversations translated with bias subtitles

On a malleable foundation of benefit hate

Privilege redefining the disabled sick fate

Knowledge is power so they increase the security

Plunging Internet light into controlled dark obscurity

Foreshadowed by brandings breathing in an enclosure

Ninety Nine will fall when One controls the exposure