VERSUS: Round One

Swafford vs Sinclair

Welcome to VERSUS! This is a novel, ekphrastic, virtual slam pitting two writers against one another - and you decide who comes out on top…

Both Edward and H. R. were given the same image and wrote a creative response in a style of their choosing.

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Image by Jayson Hinrichsen.

Identical same/same/same/same denier days
  She’s an abject construct of apathetic context 
    ”All the boys love Kaylee-Anne”
      Yet, in this slipshod town, love is lost on trust
        Perhaps they “love hard” a little too much?
         Androgyny only shields her at surface level
 
         Because flesh-deep beauty and so-soft skin
       Is the rarest fucking commodity and silence
     SPEAKS: take a cut from her, she’s so easy!
   An evergreen, always-virginal breeze, it’s like
  The ultimate palette cleanser for budding 
 Been-there-done-her-she’ll-sate-until-college
Subtypes, every midwestern shithole 
      
Claims the same consent-phobic jocks lining
  Up for licks of innermost, intimate, innocent
    Double-digit fingers nailing her peony prize
     Why does she smell so fucking sweet?
       Blame it on the booze or “peer pressure” BUT
        She’ll always remember, while this traduced  
         Town churns copycat scenarios sans a care.

© Edward Swafford 2025

Aint a thing in this world
for me.
Not no sugar rush,
no blood rush or
pain
putting this body
in a different state.
I’ll buy what I want
consume what I need
steal to feel, yet

nothing satisfies…

I walk the aisles
glare at the colourful options
glance down the liquor
and dance in the firewater
gargle the spirit(e) of sin
feel it wash my throat
of last nights backdrop and shots
and know

that this needs a chaser…

I’m chasing that feeling.
I’m chasing feeling.

Pierce my soul with aesthetic metal
stain my skin with dead ink
cover the rest in unbreathable latex
slathered in petroleum jelly
and set me alight

I crave to feeeeeeeeel.

© H. R. Sinclair 2025

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*VERSUS graphics created by H. R. Sinclair via Canva.