The challenge was to write within 48 hours, a poem in 8 lines or more with the first line of the piece as:

Let me be, I screamed!

This time, we took a lot of time to decide on the winners and the ‘Poem of the day’ because the poems were all so beautifully written. Read on and you will know how difficult it was to select just one POTD amongst so many enticing pieces of art.

Poem of the day: This beautiful piece on Autism, written by Nithya Shankari stole our heart.

Here are the other winning entries on the prompt:

grapiee_31

Let me be, I screamed,
To my other self who deemed
Her words stung me hard,
Like being hit with a dart
I tried to dodge her inhuman thoughts,
until I realized it was all my knots
We envisioned our brain’s dominance,
That’s when we acknowledged its prominence
She was summoned by my subconscious,
Which made my heart more cautious
I could see all the lightyears ahead,
when my brain began to bled
we floated in the infinite dimensions,
As a journey of indefinite ascension
The paradox devoured our youth,
which slowly guided us to the death booth
All the memories flashed before my eye,
And those were the last minutes before I die.

photo_jottings

Let me be, I screamed
But mankind
Was deaf to my plea
With bloated egos
They trampled all over me
Left with no alternative
I overwhelmed them
With a lesson on
How to live and let live.

debanjanaghatak

Let me be, I screamed.
Let my mundane world turned around as I seek.
Let me walk out from the prison gate.
Let me stretch my wings and fly high up in the sky.
Let me dwell in the clouds and play with the stars.
Let me run into the woods and get lost in an unknown future.
Let me breathe the breeze of Spring, let me busk in the sun.
Let me sing unto the Lord, my Savior, my refuge.
Let me be, I begged but alas no soul remained to listen.

the.agathist

Let me be, I screamed
Keep your accusations to yourself
He paid no heed and continued
To hurl his doubts at me
“Why did he and you exchange smiles?
Why do you never have time for me?
Why are you wearing such a low neck?”
His questions tortured me.
I took a step back and received a threat
“I’ll kill myself if you leave me…”
For weeks and months I dragged it hence
Wondering how love could so ugly be.
To every evil though, there’s an end
‘Cos you have promises to keep
So I let my veil fall and called for help
And I screamed, “Let me be!”

kirti_santosh

Let me be, I screamed,
It’s my life you see.
Let me live the way I see,
Not the way you want to see.
Let me be, I screamed,
You don’t dictate terms to me,
Please let me live in glee,
And will succeed, I guarantee.
Let me be, I screamed,
I believe in my confidence,
And I don’t live in pretense,
And prove things with my presence.
Let me be, I screamed,
I am a woman of substance,
Who has talent in abundance,
And a bundle of beauty and elegance.

gowristoryteller

Let me be, I screamed…..
I may be lost,
I may have failed,
I may have tarnished,
I may be hurt,
I may have fallen….
Fallen really hard,
I may be mocked, ridiculed,
Pushed into the darkest abyss,
Where I’m shrouded with my worst fears,
Where even the loudest screams don’t seem to be heard.
But let me be….
‘Cause all this would chisel me,
In layers after layers,
Over days so many,
Like a diamond that lies buried deep under the earth.
In the end having crossed all the unkind miles,
when I emerge –
Like the phoenix,
I would step into this world,
With great pride and grit
Revealing my best possible self
that I can possibly be.

victoriousvini

Let me be, I screamed
Snatching away my dream.
Submerging my shine,
For the society that whines.
Shackled in your lie
Denied my ability to fly.
Taken for granted,
For having an opinion being taunted.
Every ounce in me is scrutinized,
With my passion being brutalized.
Alone in a crowded room,
Forced to smile and suppress my gloom.
Let me be, i screamed,
For once let me live my dream.
Let my shine be the reason,
For your smile every season.
Let me be free to voice what i think,
Must not be taken for granted, to be forgotten in a blink.
Let me be, I screamed
Want to smile from happiness,
Not to suppress my willingness.
I can bear criticism,
But not at the hands of machoism.
Let me be, I screamed.

mind.whisperer

Let me be, I screamed
Let me be, I roared

A voice came raging in
From the depths of mine
Stop with the preaching
Stop with the assessing
I am not the stereotype
I am the rebel type
I do what I like and
I like what I do

It leads me to places I love and hate
To feelings I never wanted to know
To feelings I will cherish everyday
It leads me to people
From all sorts of life
But most of all it leads me
To myself – a new version
With every fight

Society wants it
They can shove it
It is solely my life
I run it with only
What I feel is right
My values are my own
Not copy pasted from
Every other cornerstone

I own what I do
No regrets is all I wanna grow upto
Carrying my heart on my sleeves
I fight every day
It is not a fight against one sex
But us versus them
Equality versus paradoxical
It is a fight against the phrase
“You are born in the wrong era/wrong place.”
To manifesting a –
“The place adapts to your headspace”

Let me be, I screamed
Let me be, free of chains
Let me be, my own curator
Not bounded by societal drains!

since__1998____

Let me be, I screamed,
Let me sleep deep and not weep,
Let me smile, among the fake,
Let me laugh with no pain,
Let me dream with a hope,
Let me be a comfort for my soul,
Let me choose my path to life,
Let me love if it kills,
Let me hate if it heals,
Let me be myself,
For I’m at my journey’s end,
Left with no memories to mend…

alekhyyaaa

Let me be, I screamed,
As my heart still deemed.
Loneliness is what I choose,
For nobody in life I accuse.
When nefariousness shall flee,
I will live in glee.
Until then let me be,
While my soul awaits to be set free.

momtherhustler

chandra_babu85

Let me be, I screamed
Cried overjoyed at the shots,
Cherished the golden moments,
Dreams are coming live again,
The wings are regenerated,
With rejuvenate energies unlimited,
Let me explore the skies untired,
What hopes you have shown to my eyes again?
Will it be accomplished?
I may fall, but will fly again spreading wings to the tilt,
Like a phoenix will rise from ashes ,to realize my full potential of being alive.

eternal_amrita

Let me be, I screamed,
Free me from your incessant demands,
Whimsical, orthodox and irrelevant,
But then, did I really want to be free?
If I really yearned for it I would have get it,
And, then I discerned, to free my caged mind,
The outside chaos would remain as a leech,
But my transformed mindset would destroy it.

roopa_radhakrishnan_

Let me be, I screamed
Constant judgements began to bother me
Portraying an image to satisfy others
Slowly began to question my very own existence
But now I have had enough
Expectation to be perfect every single moment
Might not be something I can live with anymore
Here I go, in search of a compassionate world

vidhya_prabha_

Let me be, I screamed
“You aren’t fair dab a fairness cream”
A Choir of voices pushed me
Sorry!! I don’t need
To poach a cream to gleam
I’m not anyone’s property
No one own me
Coz, I only belong to me
So let me be,
I screamed this is the way
I see the real me

tuddu21

Let me be, I screamed with a grief,
A heart which is so badly tortured needs some relief,
My pains were getting deep into my nerves making me depressed,
Where no one wants to understand what I want to express,
Every one is just running behind to impress,
No one cares about what I feel,
Thousands of dreams are concealed,
With a zeal to achieve,
But what I love doesn’t matter,
Because this society has set many patterns,
Where each day it feels like am not being myself,
And in each phase of life, I have to prove oneself,
Now am very tired proving my worth,
Where everyday I get hurt,
But things should be changed with time,
So that you can grow up with a shine,
And all the messed up things come back to its place in time.

witheredleaves

Let me be, I screamed,
Still no one heard me,
I continue to scream,
I need someone to save me,
I’m drowning under sea,
You misled me,
You broke me and left me,
Now I’m crying myself to sleep

wordsfromabrokensoul__

Let me be, I screamed
wishing this was all a dream.

You destroyed my self esteem,
to a level which is beyond extreme.

But I will still rise up and gleam.

And I never paid attention,
as I had the wrong perception,
I just wish I knew your real intention.

But I will live with your deception,
because giving up on life is not an option.

wordsfromabrokensoul__

Let me be, I screamed in agony
to those demons living in my head,
trying to convince me that I am mad.

As they keep crawling through my brain,
I am unable to bear this pain.

They haunt me every day and night.
I am trying not to give up this fight.
But will there ever be light?
Will I be able to throw all the negativity away like a kite?

hema_panwar2010

Let me be, I screamed
Like an insect have it’s own beauty
To change itself to a butterfly
I too have dreams to fly high
I love beautiful colours
I like colourful flowers
Like bumble bees
They can’t live without trees
Don’t use me to make your life organized
Once I will left, it’s difficult for you to survive
I can be tortoise, but I too need personal space
Daily add up my slow pace to make you win the Race.

tamil_kalai29

Let me be, I screamed.
I am not a child.
Virtually I am the one who wants to be a child..!
I have sensed a positive spark!
It lets me come out from the dark.
All around me are against my passion.
You have not smelled my love and you can not sense my heart towards passion.
Hey, world!! Give me way.
Let me be, I screamed.

happiness_in_writing

Let me be, I screamed
The night sky calls me to fly
Twinkling stars pinch me not to cry
Lonely roads crave for my footsteps
Let me be, I screamed
I’m human with soft heart
Thousands of emotions flow in it
No I can’t hurt you
No I don’t want to walk in crowd
My soul wants to be happy
No not in the world of people
I want to fly and hug those shiny pebbles
I want to sleep with moon and stars
The lonely walk towards heaven feel so good
No moody people and they are no more rude
I’m on above all the worldly goods
I’m on the swings of heaven
Moons and stars pampers me
For the first time my mouth didn’t spell these words
Let me be, I screamed!

lagnajita.musings_

Let me be, I screamed
I screamed at them with full rage;
Rage brewing, at the cost of my sanity;
Sanity that I lost in the past;
Past which I vowed to let go free,
Free from the clutches of masculinity;
Masculinity that burns my very soul,
Soul on the verge of breaking down;
Down goes my futile attempts to swim,
Swim above the muddy lake called society;
Society expelling the abhorrent, like ‘us’;
Us who are screaming to let them be,
Be the shine and guide of their own.

indrani.chowdhury.988

Let me be, I screamed…
Let me walk my chosen path,
At my own terms.
Let me realize my dreams!
I promise I would not whine,
If I fade and not shine.
For if I fail, my consolation would be,
That those mistakes were mine!
Know this that I  am a living, breathing being,
Entitled to do my own things.
So let me take this leap of faith,
To create my own perfect, imperfect somethings.

debashreebasak

Let me be, I screamed
Devoured by the grey clouds of hopelessness ‘n despair
I could see my fragile fragments everywhere.
In the unrelenting silence of the night
Or even in dazzling daylight
My fragments shriek, bawl and eventually ebb away.
Only to return and embrace me with ominous brokenness.
Bottomless pits, sleepless nights, chaotic prejudices,
Muted breath, dystopian existence, point of no return
Manic descents.. I’ve had it all.
I still yearn for that chink of golden light
That’ll bathe my soul with its hypnotic glow.

the_untold_wordzzz

Let me be, I screamed
Yet didn’t utter the words I seem
A toddler in interminable dream
Buoyant with a heart of esteem
Searching life in the countless hues
Growing immensely with dreadful clues
Fleeting the thoughts of the past
I wondered why this miscast
With greif and pain of futile
I lacked peace in the world of brutal
Let me be, I screamed
Let me be, I cried and yelled
Let me be, I suffocated
Let it be terminated
Today I require a glorious change
Ambitious and brave to outrange
So the wind needs to be moving
For me to fly high waving…

wholesomehuman_._._

Let me be, I screamed,
as I was pulled down into a spiral of emotions into a world unknown.
A dark creature pulled me,
with it’s long freaky nails and textured skin.
A demon it was, grabbing me and pulling me.
screams weren’t enough to get me out of the hell hole.
emotions that triggered the worse memories, parts of my brain got activated being here.
It was the deadliest nightmare to be captured by what fears you.
My screams still echo from the demons chamber as I stay chained to the feelings I can’t free myself out of.

mehak_lakhwani

Let me be, I screamed
Stop enslaving my dreams
Centuries of pain in the bondage
Of us being tried to harness.
Let the wall of glass be splintered
Into the eyes of those who hinder
I do not want to be a wife, a mother!
Why are these words so blasphemous?
Strangled down with societal rods
My freedom unimaginable in their accord!
Anything I want is so off the radar
So why does my refusal create bizarre?
Why was I born on the giving altar?
It’s time to rise and I shan’t falter
I will emerge and rise high
Clear my window and see the skies
Let the fresh air gush inside
For I break the shackles and bid them goodbye.

Congratulations to all the winners and thank you to all the participants for patiently awaiting the results.

Do look out for our next prompt on our IG handle @writefluence

Happy WriteFluencing!

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Tags: Instagram contest, let me be i screamed, poem of the day, poetry contest, Reading Nook, writefluence contests