By Maddox D. Nash I feel blood-wet burns on my wrists, thick metal shackles my neck, behind the gag, copper-vomit sick, jaws stiff, stench of death and danger, thick invade my tear- traced nostrils, and waft over my bare breasts.  Cement-heavy eyelids lift, unfocused-  Darkness,  except yellow eyes glowing, growing closer.    Does God still exist ?    #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Préachán Ice cream Soft scream Summer street Harsh brakes Van shakes Running feet Blood red Pavement Mother's cries Ice cream puddles Child dies Oil smell Hot sun Sirens scream Small soul Called home Summers day Angels gather Tinny song Fades away Heaven bound Soft cloud Like ice cream       #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Kia Maggie It’s an odd one. A fence guarding nothing yet standing proud existing.   Soaked from lashing absorbing personality - Everyone’s favourite. Everyone’s favourite.   Hands pass over to feed greedy paws makes for heavy limbs   and staying rooted in the spot that more points to pointless than   well, pointless.     #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Roseeroe A cup of coffee costs £3.65  Another heartless transaction to keep myself alive It's not love  But it's enough     #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Isabel Mya I like silence when I’m overwhelmed and feel like I can’t breathe; I like silence during migraines, or if I can’t fall asleep.   I like silence when it’s life or death and no news is good news; I like silence while I’m writing, not after I say “I love you”.     #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By H. E. Ross I lie in a gutter on a rainy night with sewage water streaming along my face in neon reflections and a bent cigarette butt jaggedly finds its course toward my face. I cannot move and the butt touches my nose, then lips and runs on by in a twirl.       #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Shawn Galvin Sink Moon, Sink beyond dark mountains, After sailing an ocean of stars. All night captaining my dreams-- Awash in silvery moonlight. Pale, twisting limbs, Excite my mind, Until awakening to dawn’s breath. Wind becomes Only thrashing branches. Leave me now! Awake and forlorn, Empty as the sun’s shadows.     #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Danny Neff abandoned alone without friends no home   no place don’t belong a mutt just a stray   unwanted afraid scared shied away   without empty broken done   no tears not crying used up and none.     #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By The Bard of Grism Knocked … on a strangers’ house: offered a carpet cleaning’s FREE preening .   Invited in, with my vacuum… them  prepping fish, for steaming.   Smashed  the victims unconscious. Slammed  each into seating. Slitting  corotids and jugulars I vac’d their entire   blood supplies  out .   Took that  home, for Black Pudding making;   also, some Trout.     #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Al McClimens It’s a dubious exercise, sweeping the words into neat arrangements, raking the straight lines across the leaf, verso/recto and onto the page only for you to open the book and let the wind blow them senseless.     #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Chloé Combs If I wasn’t such a raging people pleaser, I would have killed myself by now.   People pleasing tempers the force behind the blade, a finger between my neck and the noose. My own naloxone.   I haunt this reality: Mom and Dad sit at the table and sigh. “What a disappointment.”      #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Ro Dominy I pull an orange dress From the rail And read again The invitation Just to be sure.   Friday, at 1pm Meet at the crem. Dresscode: Wear Her favourite colour, Blue #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Lillibit Ray after the accident your light brown eyes turned dark missing bliss blind to joy   and you tried desperately to access former versions of yourself head wound but a nightmare nothing more   and I said “you’re alive” and you responded, “I’ve changed” and this awareness crushing, unbearable would seal your fate       #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Jennifer Walter i am a small wilderness of selves   my names only told in absence of light   i am a secret fox of a messiah   you can call me Salvation of Night     #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Mary Denise Lyons Day fades like missed chances. Time slips away. No rewind. No replay.   I see – too late – how blind I’ve been; The words I’ve left unspoken, the dreams left unachieved.   Time demands its reckoning. Now in the growing dark I mourn My children who were never born.     #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Haley Rose Guthrie marionette nightmare, outlandish internal oddities, screams whip thick.   i am hearing things again i find myself wanting to chop off my limbs.   flesh in a flash, red regret, do not go near the sharp things,   they are calling.     #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By R. H. Henry The cat’s claws rake my back bloody Snip!  They’ve pruned another finger I sing out for a bone breaking They move me, again Exposed nerves jingle-jangle across the blood-slicked floor Anguish, my friend, won’t you stay a while longer Torture me not with the promise of hope     #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Florin Rosca Grown in slowness and pain, A density of space Open only onto itself, Avoided by light, Shining nothing.   Any touch of beauty Ripples and reverberates, Creating its own language, Adding to hidden depths Of awareness.   The soul of the dark poet. Could I foster such a miracle?       #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Sarah Doyle Dusk falls, and the cravings begin, my innards grumbling like thunder. I nourish myself with night: velvet and rich as chocolate cake. The moon is sharp with basalt, its biscuity crust yielding to my jaw’s insatiable grind, as the sky grows dark in my belly.     #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Crystal Marie Forced upon my knees to demonstrate my loyalty My pain becomes her opiate   Left with dazed confusion and the acrid aftertaste of unwilling comprehension   My enduring acquiescence  quells her perennial emptiness with grievous brevity   While she carves her name beneath my skin and tells me that she’s proud of me     #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge