Welcome to Cozy Poetry Corner by Debra A Winter (Richter)

“Saying Goodbye in Free Verse”

Let the countdown begin, she thought,

staring at the little number in the corner of her profile.

Seventeen days left. Seventeen days until freedom.

Sixteen years she’d been here.

~

Sixteen years of writing from the heart, only to be kicked at the start.

Contest after contest, she tried her best.

And what happened next?

Someone skimmed her words, squinted, and declared, “Not right.”

~

She didn’t fight. Not anymore. She’d paid her fees.

Year after year, she invested more than she wanted to admit.

And what did she get? A couple of ribbons, a handful of smiles,

and lately disqualification notices that felt colder than Wisconsin winters.

~

She opened a beer. It tasted like clarity. “Why am I paying more for this site;

then I pay for my own website?” she muttered.

On her site, readers read. They liked it. They visited.

They didn’t judge her voice like it was a crime scene.

~

Seventeen days left. She smiled. Let them keep their crowns,

their committees, their rulebooks written in disappearing ink.

She was done being pushed around.

Her words were going home. To a place that deserved them.