Poems for the threshold moments.

A poem of estrangement and moral conviction, where truth, empathy, faith, and self-definition meet without easy resolution.

A brief meditation on shared sky, shared light, and the human belonging contained in the word “we.”

Silver award on AllPoetry

Cosmic scale and human imagination meet in a poem that holds creation, scientific wonder, faith, reason, and renewal in the same field of vision.

Gold award and honorable mentions on AllPoetry

A movement through danger, attempted belonging, exclusion, and the difficult work of making a freer life. The poem’s original page includes Erika’s own commentary and adaptation credit.

Honorable mention on AllPoetry

A compressed reckoning with a long-neglected feminine self, moving from suppression and anxiety toward recognition.

Bronze award and honorable mentions on AllPoetry

A haiku that looks to classical sculpture to question narrow contemporary standards of natural beauty.

Honorable mentions on AllPoetry

A rejection of manufactured perfection and a turn toward the varied, lived examples through which women learn to see their own beauty.

Gold award and honorable mention on AllPoetry

A performance poem about a handmade dress, the fears attached to public visibility, and the gradual act of claiming space in daylight.

Gold, silver, and bronze awards plus honorable mentions on AllPoetry

A four-part reflection on relationships as teachers—love, growth, loss, and renewed purpose forged through adversity.

Gold, silver, and bronze awards plus an honorable mention on AllPoetry

A comic narrative of a turbulent training flight, an overwhelmed crew member, and the affectionate squadron ribbing that follows.

Silver award on AllPoetry

A performance-minded celebration of poets, open mics, and the stage as a place where language, memory, humor, and human truth are taken seriously.

Gold and silver awards plus an honorable mention on AllPoetry

A tense meditation on waiting within a relationship shaped by conditional love, emotional storms, and uncertainty about what comes next.

Gold award on AllPoetry

A playful love poem built around a tournament clock, where turns, wordplay, and shared attention become measures of intimacy.

Gold award on AllPoetry

A return to goth-club memories, aging, music, solitude, and the figures who continue to haunt the spaces where identity was formed.

Bronze award and honorable mentions on AllPoetry

A coastal meditation on lighthouse, weather, navigation, and the way places help us measure a life in motion.

Silver and bronze awards on AllPoetry

A sensual nocturnal portrait of attraction, perfume, fleeting time, and the reluctance of two people to let the night end.

Gold and silver awards plus honorable mentions on AllPoetry

A restless reflection on aging and the uncertain journey forward, using a military hop as a metaphor for where life may carry us.

Gold award on AllPoetry

A romantic scene of late-night desire and parting that turns, with a wink, toward the borrowed jacket carrying affection in a lover’s absence.

Silver award and honorable mentions on AllPoetry