5th Place: Justin Benitez

Junior, Spanish River High School

Here I Stand on the Shores of Time

I see the lines where others before set their course,

Others who had found themselves before the vast blue.

Here I sit on a beach of nothing

The sand shifts underneath my weight

I find myself sinking between the grains, losing my grip.

Here I am lost beneath the shoreline

Deeper I sink where others feared to go.

The wet sand clings to my skin, a friend who won’t let me go

Here I am, once more, standing on the shores of time.

The strangest feeling of déjà vu

Washes over me like the waves.

Here I swim,

Through the waters of oblivion

Where I am to be lost … as I have been before-

Here I will drown,

To join the dead in the deep

To be picked clean of my thoughts and memory.

Here I will sleep,

Where I might find what’s been lost,

Where eternity will be my companion.

Here at last,

We will find peace.

Our Final Judge, Dr. Jeff Morgan of Lynn University, says of Benitez’s poem : “I like the seemingly Christian existential embracing of suffering and the acceptance of death.”