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CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
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to explore all poetry submission opportunities for poets 18 years and under.
Young poets may also submit to the Weekly Poems Contest.
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May 15th, 2026
Young Poets 16 to 18 Contest #2 – First Place
by Shotha N. Munyai
People enter my life like soft footsteps on a quiet night, gentle enough to make me believe they came with intention, with honesty, with something real. They look at me as if they finally see the parts of me I’ve been hiding from the world — the soft pieces, the loyal parts, the broken corners. For a moment, I let myself believe they might stay. But they don’t. They peel away slowly, or they vanish suddenly, either way leaving me in the same empty space trying to make sense of the echo their absence leaves behind. I pretend I’m fine. I pretend the silence doesn’t cut. But my heart... my heart holds every goodbye like a bruise that never fully fades. It remembers everything — every laugh, every promise, every moment I thought I mattered. It remembers too well. It always does. And love — love is where I fall the hardest. I give with a tenderness I never learned to control. I offer warmth that comes from places inside me I don’t show anyone else. I give the parts of me that cost the most to share. But people take what they want — the comfort, the softness, the presence — and then walk away when the weight of having me becomes too real. They leave me holding the same tired questions that never get answered: Why wasn’t I enough? Why wasn’t I chosen? Why am I always the one left open while everyone else closes their doors? It breaks something in me that I can’t explain with words. Not pain exactly... but a heaviness, a deep ache that sits quietly beneath everything I do. Then there is family — the place where the world says I should be safest. But sometimes even there I feel like a visitor in a home built for everyone else. I speak my truth, but it falls into the room like it has no place to land. I try to be enough, but the silence tells me I am still somehow missing something. It’s a strange kind of loneliness — to be surrounded by people and still feel invisible, still feel unheard, still feel like I’m reaching for hands that don’t reach back. And so I drift between all these places — friends, relationships, family — with a heart that refuses to stop hoping, refuses to stop caring, refuses to become cold even when the world keeps teaching me that softness is a risk no one else is willing to take. There are nights when the weight of it all sits so heavy on my chest that even breathing feels like work. Nights where I lay in the quiet and feel the emptiness stretch out inside me, filling every part that once held joy. But still... I stay soft. Still, I carry love like it’s the only thing that keeps me alive. Still, I wait for someone who won’t see my heart as something temporary, something convenient, something to hold only when they’re lonely. I wait for someone who will choose me without hesitation. Someone who will stay when things get heavy, when I feel too much, when my heart becomes a storm instead of a quiet sky. Maybe my curse isn’t that people leave. Maybe my curse is that I love with a depth most people aren’t ready for. A depth they admire at first but run from eventually. But even with the weight, even with the ache, even with the heaviness that never fully leaves — I am still here. Still standing. Still holding on to the hope that one day someone will see the softness in me and not be afraid of it. Until then, I carry my heart the way I always have — tender, open, and unashamed, even when the world tries to convince me to harden. Because this is who I am: the one who loves deeply, the one who stays, the one who tries, the one who holds everything even when no one else does. And though it feels heavy, though it feels endless, though it breaks me in places I don’t show the world — I remain. Still loving. Still wanting. Still hoping someone, someday will stay.
About the Poet
Shotha N. Munyai resides in Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa.
Read the poet's biography and Young Poets World publications
on Shotha N. Munyai's Artist Page.
Young Poets Collection
This poem is also featured in
Young Poets Collection #2,
published in the Young Poets World Library.
Keywords: resilience, hope
Previously published in Young Poets 16 to 18:
walking in a liminal space
by Shekina Oh
Young Poets 16 to 18 is part of Young Poets World and waxpoetryart.com.
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