Poetry competition winning entries - 1st place
Posted by Philippa Morgan on 3 February 2019
In first place was Sophie Nicholls
"It was in the month of May
On a cold quiet normal day
That a girl known by the name of Ruth
Was stopped from ever escaping her now eternal youth.
She had worn a yellow jumper,
Now dampened with her blood
The stains upon her jumper
Not from innocent blood.
Underneath a navy shirt,
The remains now covered in layers of dirt,
Her tied back hair had also come undone,
As her blood had started to trickle and run.
She and her friends had gone out for dinner
To quench the hunger for food within her.
They had all agreed to split the bill
But to pay her part seemed against her will.
Many would have said that she was sweet and nice,
But for her meal she didn't pay the price.
So her life took a sudden bend
And she met her chilling, untimely end.
In an alleyway that Sunday night,
In between the cold walls untouched by light,
Death made its fatal nest
And laid her body there to rest.
She lay there hidden by the towers of stone
As the mystery of her death made its home,
Something had been there to end her life,
She had been at the mercy of the tip of a knife.
On her finger, she had worn a ring
As she was taken away on a raven's wing.
There her body lid on the cobble path,
After she had faced death's fatal wrath.
The thing that chased her that night was dank and cunning.
Its mere presence would send you running
And leave your skin as cold as ice,
An end that cannot be described as very nice.
Now she laid next there next to the alley walls,
Never again to grace the school halls.
Due to the events that happened that cold cloudless night,
She didn't even make it to dawn's morning light.
It's unknown how and why she had died.
No-one living has ever looked her killer in the eye.
For all we know, it could still be loose,
It keeps us in fear with its paralysing noose.
No-one knows why that happened to Ruth
And perhaps we will never fully know the truth.
So if it's really her who haunts the town square,
Or another victim who there entered death's lair.
But her final actions were innocent and pure,
Yet for her predicament she could find no cure.
So to the end of her days, she blew a kiss
And cried a silent tear for those she would miss."