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Introducing: THE COPPERPLATE AWARDS, an annual writing challenge powered by Prose. The categories: Short Fiction (500 word minimum) Creative Nonfiction (500 word minimum) Poetry (250 word minimum) Write about the subject of TEMPTATION and submit your entry for ONE of the above categories to be considered. Tag the category for which you are submitting in your entry (#poetry, #shortfiction, #creativenonfiction). Submissions will be evaluated by Prose and a trusted panel of judges based on form, content, fire, and creative edge. Deadline: February 1, 2016 First place winners in each category will receive $500 and an iPad. Runners-up in all three categories will receive writerly swag (stay tuned for details). Winners will be announced on April 1, 2016 and prizes will be distributed on or before April 15.
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Lira

Temptation.

Take it. Go for it.

Own it.

It destroys you, it does. It propels you so much deeper into the abyss of self indulgence, of sin, of self destruction.

It is so very dark here. You cannot see a thing. Temptation blinds you, throws a cloak of darkness over your mind and body, but you aren't scared, are you?

No. You enjoy it, you crave the darkness. The barrier between your wants and your conscience. You enjoy that momentary feeling of numbness, of the world revolving around you, and you alone.

So you give in. Again and again. Until one day, you're caught in the act. Under the covers with yet another stranger, in the store, pocketing packets of candy, at home with your hand in the cookie jar. Guilt washes over you. It threatens to drown you.

But it can't, because you're already sinking into temptation. You realise that, you know that temptation has now overpowered guilt, and it saddens you. You wonder how it got this way. You try to swim back up, out of the abyss, desperately searching for a single speck of light in the darkness. You can't, but you can swim to shallower depths.

You give in to guilt.

Now you are sinking, self hatred overwhelms you, threatens to throw you back and forth in the waves of depression. You continue swimming. You're almost there, almost out of the ocean.

You're at the surface.

The surface, the real world. Filled with nameless strangers, packets of candy, jars of cookies. There it is again. The darkness. The soothing cloak that seduces your mind.

Take it. Go for it.

Own it.

And you do.

#poetry