Subject: Scar Your Mind Winners
We received thousands of fantastic and inspiring pieces of work for the Scar Your Mind contest. It was extremely hard to narrow down the entries to just a top five, so instead we posted the top 10 here for everyone to enjoy.
Congratulations to our winner, Paul from Burlington, Ontario, who created a truly epic short graphic novel/comic book inspired by Scars. He will win a lithograph of his comic signed by the guys, Scars limited vinyl, all signed by Daron and John, and a chance to meet the band when they come through his city.
Congrats also to our runners-up. Joseph from Lodi, CA, Toni from Ft. Collins, CO, Joe from La Crosse, WI, and Miranda from Greenville, SC will each win a pair of passes to see the next Scars show in their city and Scars signed vinyl.
Truly some amazing work!
WINNER
Paul from Burlington, Ontario:
RUNNERS-UP
Joseph from Lodi, California:
Toni from Ft. Collins, Colorado:
FOUND: At this particular, yet not so specific point in linear time & space… Thinking, that I am thinking: Why here? Why now? "I suppose it truly doesn't matter in the way that scientists would define matter," I admit.. Wherever I'm going, I must already be there. Smugly grinning, I think, what if not here & now, then where? Where would this free will, I hear soo much about, take me? AND I'M FLYING: Through time & space as einstein's ethereal matter.. Rage less & agelessly I spin, weaving through multi chasmied tri-river tunnels of instinctual light. Clarity in motion, pulse throbbing, orgasm coming to a head. POWER OF 3 SO SHALL IT BE: Then it hits me! It hits me like pina colada brain freeze on a sweltering day at the beach. I am doubled over, clutching my head, knees buckling, never land is twitching. And for just a moment my nostrils are violated… Infidels! Is that the smell of young professionals reaching critical mass or just the latest knock-off charity, baked in sun screen? It hits me again, caressing my chin like a cool slab of cement. I'VE FALLEN: Into the masses I'm falling, did I book this trip? I'm marching tall & strong, skin gleaming like a melted grape jolly rancher on sizzling, July pavers. I am marching & composing an echoless tune, a tune that I've yet to lay hands on. This lullaby massages my insides, finger painting me in delight. Each foot reverberates like a tuning fork, spinning the g spot, faster.. Each thud splashes in a purple tainted, primordial elixir, stammering upon that blessed HARD pavement! Devoutly, god & the goddess kneel, lapping up the confusion I've spilled. Desire steams from their holy pores while lawyers & monks snort the leftover residue. Residuals, which powder, flake & linger from the couples righteous deeds. I inch forward, just enough, to survey the lean & slender towers making up this vitreous world of reflection & illusion. Gleaming back into the moment, I see that I am attached to a picket sign. I wield no ordinary picket sign; it sways in the wind, like moses' beard must have on that fateful day at mt. sinai… "Note to self, do NOT grow a beard!" I must understand this foreign tongue I speak, it just keeps coming, flowering like a backwoods voodoo rebirth. The elusive syntax evades consciousness; the jet black cobra rears her head, I giggle nervously. I just keep speaking in tongues, looking at the sign; my attention is written & willed. The language has been scribed with quill tips & ischemic ink… Glaringly obvious, this sign mundanely declares: EQUAL RIGHTS FOR CLONES. Once again, I smile to myself, how extraordinarily "novel," I think, I'm thinking to myself… I look to my neighbor, marching partner, & newfound friend. Once again, I smile, to myself.
Miranda from Greenville, South Carolina:
Joe from La Crosse, Wisconsin:
Dead Roses
I
Ashes of you rise
Up from the ground
I smoke my soul
I burn my bridges.
As I throw your mother's urn
I piss out the visions
I piss on the world.
Sweet honey roasted hickory nuts
Tickle my taste buds
I see a fallen angel
I help him rise
above it.
A lonely gray butterfly
Stretching over my world
A dark rain cloud
Set to explode.
A revolutionary vision
A revolt from the chains that
Pull me down
My ball and chain have melted
In your grip.
II.
A table, quite large
Set to eat
A moss grown turkey
Chunky curdled milk
The air covered in smoke
A teapot whistles
The stale bread crumbles
and falls to the floor.
A china doll in a
Highchair, still as glass
The mark on the forehead
A gift, a scar,
Mushroom cloud flowers growing
So much blood for
For such a little hole.
In the corner
A mother
With a shot gun, grins
Mr. Mossberg's come to play
A smile, a wink
A pocketful of hate
And another full of bullets
A halo of smoke
Lingers over the table.
The family seated
Sits in silence
Without a single move
Frozen in twilight
All have the mark
Crimson red
A mark of love.
A bulb, stripped naked
Is hung in the gallows
Reflected images coil off the sweaty
Moist walls,
Eclipsing time.
III.
A fluttering moth in a
Circle of light
Flies into a silk catacombs
Of a deadly mitt.
IV.
I fail to flutter
The velvet footed spider
Comes to wrap me up.
A blanket of love, a cocoon of darkness.
It's black. The murk
Has kilt my light
But it's for the best.
Steam erupts to the ceiling
From the whistling
Pot and dies away, melting
Into time
The turkey infested with slime
Is covered in maggots.
V.
A shattered doll face
Covered in hopeful existence
Fallen from grace
VI.
I sweat inside my
Cocoon
I see my friends
Covered in silk as
A sudden jolt
Rides through my exoskeleton
She sucks me dry
And tries to explain
It hurts me yet
She chews my wings
And dismembers me
I watch her as she eats-
My heart.
VII.
Rollin through your
Family with a shot gun
Pocketful of death.
Mother stirs her child
In the pot of roast
A golden china doll face
So sweet to a
Loving mother
A mark of cold
Love marking the
Forehead
A bushel of dead roses
In a cornucopia
Petals
one
by one
they
Drop with leaves
One by one they shrivel,
They die.
The gunpowder lingers
Tickling my nose.
As the TV in the oven explodesHONORABLE MENTIONS
Ariel from Van Wert, Ohio:
Forrest:
Chris from New Port Richey, Florida:
GREAT HOPES, low expectationsOh, my sweet friend, my sweet naive family.
There is no name for you.
You are a beautiful ascending pillar of light that leaves a path of squandered wealth and destruction in your wake.
Your main event awaits in the times that are almost upon us.
Our home was the garden of Eden and we mowed it down to build a battle field, yet it is a glorious time to be alive.
The end of this time is around the bend and the beginning of the new is on the horizon, just so you know.
The inefficient, the arrogant, the ignorant, the parasitic, you are the ego producing self raping parent that relies on lies and fables to teach us right from wrong as a manner of confusion. Misguided and misled we tumble aimlessly past the truth and the true meanings blind folded by the bullshit that is pounded into our soft heads. The system is broken and we have upset the balance. We must rise up by collecting knowledge. We have no leaders only parasites that we unknowingly have become slaves to and now serve. The authorities are there to cultivate you. You are a cash crop. Support our troops (kill the others). God bless America (fuck the world). What would Jesus do (every thing you're not doing).
It's all going down and the future of the human race rests solely in the hands of its fellow man, the time to act is now, but how can one fathom such a concept when America's next top model is on.
Oh, well.
Joby:
XXXXXXXXFaces
Burning nights lost within the wall of sound
Red comes to mind
A deep crimson spilling from the television
Any given soul in HD
I see that motherfucker in your dreams
Standing in the darkness
Just out of your reach
Lies
Broken days spent hungover praying for the moon
My normal is missing
Her neck tastes of sweat and blood
Another ending awaits
You are the destruction that we all so fear
Dancing naked in the moonlight
Dying just a little each and every day
Home
She anxiously awaits my return in her dreams
A polished exhale escapes
I cannot help but come to her in the night
All is HOLE
James:
Thank you to everyone who submitted your work!