Short Story and Poems Comp Submissions

here is my choice of poem, I decided that of all the tripe I have written, this is the one I will enter, I will submit the story later

Run

no
I don't need to
I need to run
run away
get out
go as far as I can

get outta here
to where it is better
where it's calm
free from the Chaos
back to the start
away from the mess
just run

run
as fast as I can
faster than that
til I can't stop
run
pound my feet
til they blister
keep runnin'

get away
go so fast
get dizzy from speed
keep goin'
til you feel you cant go on
and then continue
further onwards

you'll know when your there
til then head forward
to the end
and when your there
stop
stop and look
to the start

see it
enjoy it
know that you have cleared it
as you look back
you'll see it
and you'll see how small it is
and you'll wonder why you ran

Can I use THIS as my entry?


I wanted to use a different story but I've just realised I don't have it saved on disc and I really don't fancy typing it all out.

here's my story for the competition

Meeting Sarah

The train up had taken four hours, before that it had taken three hours to actually get to the station from which the train left. The fact that the train was forty five minutes late only added to the length of time this was taking, yet the man expected it, after all the trains were in a state. From their there was a further two hour bus ride to his final destination. It was half six, and a rather warm summer evening when he arrived there. He looked around, not actually sure of where it was he was going, this was his first time their after all. From the pocket of his trousers he pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. It was a map, and not really a clear one, but it was the best he could find online with such short notice. After much fumbling he found the point were he was to finally meet her, yet she was not the only person their. He searched for her, eventually finding her lying near to a withered oak tree. She hadn't seen him, so he stood there for a while, just looking, unsure of what was the best way to start. He had been debating with himself the whole way up hear what to say. Eventually he got up the courage he needed and sat down beside her.

He looked for the receptionist, but she wasn't there. He left his key on the desk, then walked to Peter's house.

Peter opened the door.
"Come in. It's good to see you."
They both sat on the sofa. Peter didn't ask any questions.
"I had a shower, but I still smell. I've been wearing these clothes for months. I feel ashamed."
"Borrow some of mine if you like."
"Thanks."
"Don't worry about it."
Matthew walked up the stairs. He went into Peter's bedroom, opened the wardrobe, and put on some jeans and a T-shirt. The clothes were similar to what he had been wearing before, except they were clean. They were also too big for him.
He walked downstairs. He emptied his pockets, and put his money and the photograph on the table. He noticed something in his jeans pocket: it was the key to his mother's house. He put that on the table as well.
"Is it all right if I use your washing machine?"
"Yeah, sure."
He put his clothes in the wash. He went to the table, picking up the photograph, key and money. He put his stuff on the windowsill in Peter's spare room. He walked downstairs and sat on the sofa.
"Your house looks the same as when I was last here. Same silver walls, same purple carpets."
"I painted the wall in the spare room blue. My one concession to normality... It was good of my parents to buy this house. I'll pay them back one day."
He paused. Then he said, "Anyway, what have you been
up to?"
"Alisha split up with me last year. I dropped out of university, I couldn't see the point of going any more. Then I started drinking. I got sacked from my job. I stopped paying rent, so the landlord evicted me.I slept rough for a few months, apart from last night. So, have you seen Alisha recently? I just thought you might have, seeing as though she's doing the same course as
your cousin."
"Didn't you hear about Alisha?"
"No. What do you mean?"
"Alisha died six months ago. I'm sorry, Matthew."
Matthew looked at Peter with a dazed expression.
"Have you got a new collection out?"
"What?"
"I said, have you got a new collection out?"
"Oh, right. Yeah, I've sold my clothes to a few shops."

For the next few days, Matthew was quiet and withdrawn. Peter had started to feel concerned. Still, perhaps he needed some time on his own. So, every afternooon, Peter went to his studio in town, where he worked on some sketches.

"I couldn't ask you before. I needed to, but I couldn't. How did
Alisha die?"
"I wasn't there when she died. I heard about it from my cousin. He heard about it from one of his friends. She was walking to university, then she was run over by a car."
"Was the driver drunk?"
"No. He hadn't been drinking."
"Was he on drugs?"
"No. Alisha wasn't looking where she was going."
"I always hoped I'd get back with Alisha... I can't believe she's dead... It was my fault she broke up with me... She told both her parents about us... I told my mum but I didn't tell my dad. I was always closer to Mum, especially after the divorce. I didn't tell Dad, because he's racist. He wouldn't have liked Alisha... You know after Alisha split up with me?"
"Yeah?"
"Was she seeing anyone else?"
"No, she wasn't. My cousin said that she used to talk about you. She wanted to get back with you, work things out."
"I should have stood up to my dad. I should have told him that I was going out with Alisha. I should have told him that I didn't care what he thought. And then, she wouldn't have..."
"But there's no use blaming yourself. It wasn't your fault. You can't keep saying 'what if' and 'if only'. Alisha would have wanted you to get on with your life."
"I know. I'm going to enrol at university tomorrow. Well, re-enrol. I'm still worried about going back though; I feel nervous."
"It'll be OK. You can do it."

The following morning, he visited the graveyard where Alisha was buried. Peter had offered to go with him, but Matthew had said that he would rather go on his own. He needed to do this alone. He knew that he would probably cry once he was at her grave, and he didn't want to cry in front of Peter.
He had asked if he could have some flowers to put on the grave, Peter's garden had roses, forget-me-nots and a weeping willow. He wasn't that bothered about the garden, it was his mother's doing. The place needed a woman's touch, she
had said.
Matthew sat on the garden bench for a while. He got up and walked around, looking at all the flowers. He looked at the blues; he had asked what they were yesterday, and Peter said they were forget-me-nots. They were delicate and fragile, and looked as though they would break if anyone so much as touched them. I know how you feel, little flowers, he thought.
He took Peter's scissors out of his coat pocket. He cut a few flowers. He put the scissors in his left pocket.
He walked to the graveyard carrying the flowers; it was a long walk, but he didn't care.
He approached the bus stop; a friendly-looking lady was waiting there.
"Who's the lucky girl?" she smiled, noticing the flowers.
"I'm not going on a date."
As he walked on, he said to himself: These are flowers
of despair.
He put the flowers on her gave. He looked at the flowers on the other graves. There were dead flowers everywhere.

"I can't believe you're gone," he whispered. "At least, I couldn't. When Peter told me, I kept thinking that I'd wake up and realise it was all a bad dream. Or he would

Here's my story.

The Brothel

The light leaked past the shutters on the low windows creeping slowly through to the puddles on the old cobbled street below.

We are carried by our Mothers like a whistle on the wind.

When I was a child there had been a war, I remember little about my life at that time, I do remember the people,the characters and family I was surrounded by in the Kurdish village of my birth. The war destroyed my village,our village like it did many others. It was not a slow relentless decline like the pounding of the sea on a coastal outreach,but a scream in the night,confusion, tears and burning,the roar of burning and the crisp crackle of wood twisting in the flames.

When my village died the news forgot to give a special notice of it, it passed unknown like its neighbours, a corpse unburied and there was no time to morn it. My mother my tiny sisters and I had escaped into the forest, several other familes managed to get away , most where not that lucky. We had had a farm on the farside of the village and by this fate had been granted time for Mother to gather us children and a few belongings and our documents. My Father was already lost to the war, like many men in our rural society he had been conscripted about a year before and we had not heard anything of him since.
It was my Mothers wish that we forget him,i did not understand this then and did not understand why we had never gone back home after the war.

Something else had died along with our village, an aincent tradition that had held out in our tiny little isolated world. The language that is my mothertongue had in those days two versions,the spoken version and the whistled version, whistling among the fields and the hills carried higher and longer and further and had survived in our small farming community.
Each word had a whistle as well as a standard pronouncination, similar in a way to yodelling but more complex and diverse and more varied in tone.Once you had cut teeth you learnt to whistle.


I do not whistle now, nor do I speak my old language, my mother had long since died and when I talk,I talk in English as I have an appartment in New York city. it is very different there, the only whistles I hear are those which are used to hail a taxi-cab.
I travel

My entry

It started as an exercise in descriptive writing for my class. The whole thing is about 3,000 and is my final piece for the year. I'm just putting a small bit here, though.

"Midnight"

-A true heart I feel,
blushing at the stars,
my fluttering timid hope,
reaching silent alone,
waxing moonlight dreams,
flicker in my soul,
a faint sigh,
fading to the sky,
waiting through the night,
a new dawn's fragile light.