563rd Weekly Poetry Contest winner: The Boy in the Woods
They left me where the trees
grow louder than mouths,
where the wind keeps no promises
and roots knot themselves like fists.
I called—
once, twice, until my throat
was a hollow cave that swallowed its own echo.
No one came.
So I bent a branch into a blade,
lifted stones like small shields,
and struck back at shadows
that wanted my bones for supper.
Nettles laced my skin,
but their poison broke against me
as if I were already scarred
before the sting.
Nights, I built fire from splinters,
taught hunger to wait in silence,
taught fear to sit obedient
like a dog by my heel.
The woods were merciless,
yet they bent, little by little,
as I learned to bend with them—
not conquered, not kind,
only honest in their cruelty.
And I understood:
the world beyond the trees
was no gentler,
only better dressed.
I no longer plead for voices.
I no longer beg for rescue.
My hands are enough—
calloused, blood-marked,
yet steady enough
to carve shelter from absence,
to cut truth from silence.
Once a boy waited for saving.
Now a boy waits for nothing.