# November Challenge: "Lost"



## Chesters Daughter

The prompt for this month's challenge, as chosen by Firemajic is: *Lost*

You are free to interpret the prompt in any way you wish, though of course, site rules apply. If you are unsure of the challenge rules please read the 'stickies' at the top of the board.

We are continuing to allow optional anonymity this month. You may post your entries yourself, or, if you'd like to remain anonymous, you may PM your entry to me, *Chester's Daughter*, If you are posting anonymously, please indicate in your PM which board, public or workshop, you desire your entry posted on.

Kindly make sure your entry is properly formatted and error free before you submit. You have a *ten minute grace period* to edit your piece, but anything edited after that will likely see your entry excluded from the challenge. 

As usual, if you'd wish to protect your first rights, post your entry in the *workshop thread,* *and post a link to it in this thread. Failure to do so runs the risk of your entry being disqualified.

Do not post comments in this thread. Any discussion related to the challenge can take place in the Bards' Bistro.

Now that the 'like" function is again blessing us with its presence, we respectfully request that you refrain from using it until this thread has been closed and the poll has been opened.

This challenge will close on the 15th of November at 7pm EST.*


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## Fats Velvet

closure-language/content warning


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## Pidgeon84

Lost

Have we lost our way
Time slipped away
Have we lost our sight
Feeling for you in the dark
Have we lost our path
Are you hiding in the trees
Have we lost our mind 
Talking to your shadow 
Have we lost our touch
Standing in the cold
Have we lost it all
I wish I could take it back


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## The Defenestrator

Autumnal Hangover


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## toddm

*Beyond the hills*

The hedgerows are silent, the gardens are grey,
the pageant of summer has faded away,
and cool gusts in the oak leaves sigh:
_Even the loveliest flowers die._

Elm branches twine like wood-hag hands,
the geese flee south in solemn bands,
and blackbirds in their conclaves cry:
_Even the loveliest flowers die!_

And beyond the hills, a bell is ringing;
a hidden voice is softly singing
beneath a gathering grey-beard sky:
_Even the loveliest flowers die._


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## Nick

*Shakespeare, an Elegy 


*I didn’t know him – few did:
barely his friends,
barely his family,
and he never had time 
to begin to know himself.

Tragic was his end.
But the most crippling disease 
was his name.
Expectations of ink and players,
poetry and unfathomable skill
in language and love.

Talentless in his time,
but he’ll be remembered
for the talent of having
blood that he didn’t know,
and the dim shadow of a soul
that defined the ages.

Here lies Shakespeare,
named for his grandfather,
William.


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## TheFuhrer02

*Where Did It All Go?*

Caped crusaders, champions of justice,
gaining victory against unscrupulous villains;
courageous cowboys reigning in the west,
keeping the various outlaws in check –
where did it all go?

Surreal journeys into outer space
discovering numerous alien races
while we sped beyond the speed of light
aboard our fancy spaceships –
where did it all go?

Donning our plaid pirate suits,
we sought to plunder the world’s riches.
Paintings, sculptures, chests of gold,
pieces of silver we longed to grab and hold –
where did it all go?

Random clicks from the closet in the corner
hiding what could be a very scary monster
or perhaps a vampire seeking our blood,
maybe the bogeyman’s on the hunt –
where did it all go?

Then with a snap of a finger,
we all let it fade and wither,
we gave it a happy wave goodbye,
eager to experience the life of adulthood –
a life of pain, misery and regret
as sorrow upon sorrow beset us.
Only then we realise our mistake
And struggle to find that wonder again,
asking, “Where did it all go?”


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## Firemajic

*The Rape of Innocence*

Like a book you opened me
read every line and word,
with a red pen you rewrote me.
Afraid of your touch, I ran
and you chased me
across unknown galaxies
where stars are not stars--
but tears yet uncried.
And there, in a solar vortex 
you captured me.

You led me to obsidian mountains
where we played in crystal snow
made of unbearable pain and despair.
You laughed as you gathered shimmering dust
in your silver needle and plunged it into
my innocent veins I whispered "do it again".

I followed you to magenta canyons
where we explored sacred burial grounds,
and there we caressed each other
with the fire of our desires,
and slept for long years 
in the red dust of our destructive passion.
I lay naked, breathless in your arms
moaning "do it again, do it again".

You ran and I followed you
to an enchanted forest,
and you hid in crushed velvet ferns--
and watched me.
A wounded animal seeking a repreive
from the labyrinth of pain.
the stars were just stars,weeping bitter
silver tears that left tracks on my arms,
and the taste was wine on my parched lips.
Alien creatures screamed in terror 
at the sound of my grief as I call to you
"do it again", do it again".

It was there, In the deep woods dark
where you came to me,
and timidly I offered you my book.
In bold red strokes you signed your name
and wrote "The End".
You devoured it, every line and word,
until nothing was left.
And as I lay dying,I wept
"do it again, do it again, do it again.


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## Gargh

Mister's spot


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## Ethan

*Forever Lost*

Through grey curtains of mist, gunsmoke and lead,
they stumble forever, the already dead,
across cratered earth, over kinsfolk and kin,
away from the whistle, towards the worlds end.

Caught in that moment, twixt Heaven and Hell,
where the choirs of the angels sound the same as a shell,
listening for Heaven through whatever Hell sends,
away from the whistle toward the worlds end.

Timeless, their blindness, will keep them locked here,
bound and forever and chained in their fear,
Lost and forever wandering twixt  foe and friend,
just away from the whistle, toward the worlds end.


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## Gumby

http://www.writingforums.com/thread...ot-Lost-quot?p=1791724&viewfull=1#post1791724


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## qwertyportne

http://www.writingforums.com/thread...ot-Lost-quot?p=1792221&viewfull=1#post1792221 Found


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## Chesters Daughter

Secure entry posted by *escorial:

**lost myself*


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## Chesters Daughter

Secure entry posted by* Nellie*:

*Good Mourning*


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## Chesters Daughter

*Remaking Matt*

The street owns him;
its multitude of urchins
have tenacious talons
latched on
to the yuletide decor
sported year round.

But that physical grasp
can't compete
with the chemical hold
that haunts him.

His cerebral cells 
incessantly seek
serotonin peak
and the means to the summit
matters not.

I desperately worship the hope
that his baton battered brain
(the urchin war supersedes our laws)
will render some desires comatose,
for the newborn unknown no one
is slowly shedding the he 
my boy used to be.

My dustpan is translucent
from overuse
as suppressing a wail
I follow his trail
sweeping up particles
of my AWOL son.

I've safely secreted away
flakes of his once whole soul
to await reconstruction.
If glue won't do,
there's always spit,
for which I'll seek out my sis
who has a gavel hanging
from her rigid right wrist
and metes out justice
with an iron fist.

While spittle sprays
as she passes sentence, 
I'll be standing there 
with both palms,
previously sprinkled 
with remains of sane,
upturned to catch righteous rain.

Then these buckled knuckles
will knead 'til they bleed
and, God willing, create clay
to usher in rebirth day,
the dawn of which
will light Matt's way
home.

I've sent sis
a bushel of lemons
for my missing son's 
far too young
to rest in pieces.


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## Caragula

*Emily *

It was the softest wool I could knit 
to fit the fingers that twitched to her dreaming. 

The nurse changed her nappy in her clear plastic box, 
delicate with wires, adjusting the socks. "She's sleeping." 

I looked in my bag, to find and place in full view 
my ragged blue bear, to watch her while I left her there, 
following the long echoing halls to the nightporters in the canteen eating, 
a cold bacon roll while her heart stopped beating, 
feet clattering on corridor floors I followed the alarm 
that kept me outside her door as they rushed around her, 
my daughter, glancing first to monitors, then nurses, heads bowing, 
then me. 

A doctor removed his mask, no more risk of infection, 
his 80 hour week ends in this show of affection. My ear is 
on his cheek, my bear on the incubator she's lying inside. 

Emily had ferociously tried.


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## jenthepen

*Remembrance*

Pick a flower for me
or sink a drink.
Play the music we shared
on that facebook link.

And dance the way you danced 
when we laughed until we cried.
Wear that shirt I bought for you;
the one you hated, but you lied.

Watch a sunset for me,
take a walk in the rain. 
When you think of me, smile
and feel my love again.

Celebrate life for me.
Celebrate love for me.
Whatever you do,
don’t let your first thought of me
be that I am lost.


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## midnightpoet

Empathy


I used to feel the feeling
but now it is comatose,
on life support.
Apathetic empathy, I would call it;
a feeling that I should care
but don’t. It’s a defensive 
mechanism, an attempt to 
forget my inclement moods
and rise above the terror
I feel inside.

Each morning I wake, 
and the numbness begins.
Vain reality stirs the flesh, 
but the unconscious reaps 
no rewards but pain. 

So in blissful lack of caring
each day a new world awaits, 
the past a burned-out wasteland,
setting me free to make the 
same mistakes again.


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## A_Jones

Raindrops fall,_ drip drop_, _drip drop_. 
My fingers glisten, wet, 
and all the world does shimmer.
I cannot see.  

Too much light, _blinding_,_ blinding_.
Its not enough that I 
must feel the wetness cling to me.
My ugly self.

I reach my hands, _twitch_,_ twitch_. 
They fall into my lap. 
Why? What is this redness I see?
Oh, the rain.

Rain, red rain? _Gushing_, _Gushing_.
Spreading everywhere
from mouths wide open, gaping.
My white hands.

It fades away, goodbye, goodbye.
I didn't mean to
but after all that has happened...
It makes sense. 

Raindrops fall,_ drip drop_, _drip drop_. 
My fingers glisten, wet, 
and all the world does shimmer.
I cannot see.


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## Dictarium

http://www.writingforums.com/thread...ot-Lost-quot?p=1794406&viewfull=1#post1794406


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## Dalton

-Lost-


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## candid petunia

cherubic heartbeats
flying out of my reach
before even born​


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## PiP

*Lest We Forget*

Two minutes silence marks your death
as we the nation remember
your sacrifice, with respect.
Silence echoes our private grief
while we the nation mourn our heroes.

Heroes, born to die in foreign lands
in battles old and new.
Haunting bugles lament your loss
while the Big Guns, salute you.
And we the nation remember
as we find solace in our thoughts.

Red poppies of Flander’s Field
their seeds from death and blood, reborn.
While we the nation wear with pride
the poppy of respect.


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## Mutimir

*Lost and Found*

With the coming age, 
few ever look for you.
Independent and weaving,
through the stream of,
self satisfaction. Feeling it each day.
Yet at that heavy price,
success breads something.
Like some wicked disease.
Friends will turn, 
becoming strangers.
Strangers will arrive, 
becoming your neighbors.
Life will become brief daily skirmishes.
To the victor, the endowment of isolation.
And that extrovert self, 
you knew and loved,
will sit lonely, locked away.
Starving for that old you.
Chained in your basement,
to a Sega Genesis.
Playing pogs for lack of variety.
Not grasping the rules,
but not caring anyway.
Dressed in your dusty Starter jacket.
Hopelessly scrounging for scraps,
falling from an empty dinner table.
Weeping for five more minutes before bed.
Losing all hope for a savior.
Forgotten by yourself,
through programmed conformity,
Each day screaming,
out that tiny basement window.
At the mailman,
to ask if Santa got this year's letter.
At the truck driver,
to see if he'll blast his horn.
At the ice cream man,
to buy his last Rocket Pop.
At the girl next door,
to see if she'll come over to play.
All they hear is regret,
from someone lost in reality.
Ears twitching as the door bell sings.
A soft voice speaks and asks a name.
The stairs start to creek,
the light begins to flicker,
like the heart desiring touch.
That old you peers, hopelessly,
drooling at an opportunity,
like a dog smelling seared meat.
But the smell isn't meat, it's shampoo.
From a head displaying a contagious smile.
As it opens, you feel it break you.
Those words again, innocently asking,
Want to come out to play?


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## Blade

*Erebus

*Smashed masts
embalmed in cold salt water
entombed by pack ice
lives strewn behind in cold

Scurvy
Frostbite
Cannibalism
Starvation

After all these decades 
discovery of the corpse
is only further loss.

Celebrate?


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## Chesters Daughter

This challenge is now closed.


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