Honorable Mention

Beneath my feet, a universe stirs—
a snail drags its fragile home, trusting the earth,
ants carve relentless paths, feeding the invisible.
Life hums here, intricate and unyielding,
a quiet persistence we never pause to see.

We are giants, rushing, stumbling,
breaking threads we’ll never feel,
tearing apart the delicate without a thought.
But the world doesn’t falter.
It bends, it mends, it reweaves
the fragile web we owe our breath to.

If life had a heartbeat, it would pulse like summer,
where roots stretch deep into the soil’s embrace,
and blossoms reach for the sun, too unafraid to burn.
The cicada sings, defying its fleeting time,
and the night hums back—the harmony of resilience,
of the things that know how to endure.

But even summer bends to autumn.
Its golden leaves fall—sacrificed to the soil—
not in death, but in promise.

Nothing truly ends. Everything transforms.
Winter comes, not to kill, but to cradle,
holding spring’s heartbeat in her frozen palms.

This is the beauty we trample past,
The life beneath our feet,
the roots we crush, even the stars we fail to see.
Step outside, where the walls you’ve built can’t follow.
Feel it with me.

You are not above this; you are not apart.
u are a thread in the infinite tapestry.
A vital note in the eternal song
of all that was, all that is, and all that will be.