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

By Sticks & Stones Poet In my pale moonlight hands, I hold forgotten empires, Ruby red realms Serpentine’s lineage, The Queen's mitochondria, How reckless my heart , I’ve become,  So desensitised, To the sight, Of my own blood, As I sit transfixed, Seeing beauty in the death, Imagining, galaxies in crimson, Ravaging me.     #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Anthony Gorin of Beauty In Normalcy This heart so jaded, hurting, in between, every fibre of my being. To this, what is even the point of living? But the beautiful moments. Finite as they may really be.   A heart trying to live, to love. Only dying in the process.     #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Di Hills The mirror looks at her in shame.   She sees … blubbery flesh,   triple chin, swollen body.    He sees … the barest twig. a martyr’s chest, flesh stripped away.   She says ‘I’m a mountain to climb’ He cries, “You’re a needle to thread!”    The mirror looks at him in shame. #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Martin Jones I gaze as you soar through star-vaulted night with wings so gracefully moving in flight. What vision compels and holds you to course, what celestial longings and mysterious force? Creatures indifferent to man and his days, who sings you the songs that dream you away?       #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Paul Benkendorfer Revenge is best served cold And the night is filled with a bitter chill   Scoop whoosh pour   Metal carves into earth Soil blends with water droplets and fills the hole   Scoop whoosh pour   Thunder drowns muffled pleas He ignored Elena’s now I ignore his   Scoop whoosh pour     #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Jade, the Son of Jack You were a dancer, and far too gentle for a place like this. I have to hope that when you leapt, though it ever breaks my heart, that some part of you continued towards the stars, to twirl amidst their gentlest of songs. Far away from a place like this.       #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Raymond Jones Held fast, I heard your wings creating a  sea of quickening struggles,   sad plaintive noises streaming horizontal  across a silken orb and berries hanging  in the pyracantha.  Death's moving quick with desire, to  mummify, bite, paralyze, liquefy the feckless.   After the pitiless bite, liquification,   fly will taste good to her.       #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By hidden Endlessly searching for answers  Tired but desperate  Your brain gets demented  Simple questions blur together  You're dwindling alongside the ether  Ultimately forgetting what to find      #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge

By Seán Tate The lines hang loosely on the page. Lethargic in nature, vapid; a chore to read. Adding nothing, giving nothing. Written for the sake of writing. Hoping for the pressure of poetic weight, but they’re far too feather light to hold the attention of even the most avid.     #darkpoetsclub #smallspacedeepimpact #50wordchallenge