This is the winner of the second spring contest from Voices From The 3rd Floor, FAU’s English major blog. Visit its website to see the runners-up.

Where the sunrise tethers ripening, one-hundred
And ninety-seven miles out of Bishop City,
He unloaded his most beloved, set fire to the ground
And began to burn

One by one, one by one. On this peculiar dawn,
A man by the name of Anthony
Bellicossae wandered out into the darkness,
And bending-past all limits,

Stranded far beyond the familiar, his home
Ground in Sunrise Park.
On a narrow, with the moon still stringed
To the dark stellar (three-hundred-eighty-

Four-thousand and four-hundred km
Out?), his shadows took reflection:
My father He showed me,
Illiterate He taught me Inheritance

And The Interpretation of Dreams. My mother,
I miss how she gave me
Tenderness. And, the universe. The universe
Did provide intelligence;

Yesterday, I had a revelation.
You see: man’s existence
Is a fantasy. Man’s work is a fantasy. Man’s
Legacy is a fantasy.

Reaching his end out in full brute-
Wilderness near the shores of Lake Tahoe;
Having burnt every-last, including his mobile-home;
Caged, he began pacing; and, in a most horrid

Pitch of desolateness, began; “Lord,
Lord pity this barren, unmolded
Soul. In a minute I will cease being, knowing fully,
That you arranged The Cosmos for me,

And that because I am not awake day ceases.
Love did not stay. Sanity never took
Hold. And every day is a-new; and, ‘Though
This be madness, there is method in’t.’”

Veering, finally, to the edge of foaming rock,
Where a most-fervent saffron
Coloured sunrise now glistens
Off the waters.

With pistol in hand, finally taking
One last: a click, a thump,
And then silence dissipated into another
Scenic blossoming morning.