Happy Friday, Steemy people!

A message in a bottle is a way of communicating with the outside world. In history, it was used to send distress messages by sailors in damaged or sinking ships. Even Columbus, during a storm in which he believed the ship would sink, threw a cask into the ocean with important information inside he hoped would make it back to his country. They never found that cask but we all know that he didn't sink that day.

Today, people still send out messages in bottles to find love or just to reach out to a stranger far away. It's a beautiful gesture to put ethereal thought onto corporeal paper and to cast it out into the world to be discovered by one stranger. I've always fantasized that I would one day walk along a beach to find a bottle with a message inside that, though not for me, would speak to me as though it were just for me.

We all have messages to share within us, so the theme for this Slam Challenge is Message in a Bottle! Your mission is to craft a poem that you would choose to put in a bottle and cast out into the ocean. What would you write about, or would you write to someone? Would you chastise humanity or make a special inspirational poem for someone, somewhere to read and feel just a little better? There's only one way to find out: POETRY SLAM!

Prizes:

1st - 50 Steem

2nd - 30 Steem

3rd - 10 Steem

Here's an example and the poem I would have submitted for this:

Poetry Slam Challenge 11: Don't Be Like Me

If found, do not return me anywhere
I am exactly where I need to be:
settling in your hands
full of mystery.
I come with a message made just for you
hand-written one night by the candle light
though it took me a year
to find the right words.
But finally I did find the right words
that would transcend the ocean, time, and space
and I scribbled them down
afraid I'd forget.
Finished, I sat back and read it out loud
"Don't be like me, don't keep your words inside."

Rules (No Rulers)

• Each entry must be presented on the writer's own blog.
• Max 3 entries per Poetry Slam please :)
• Your entry should be titled:
  Poetry Slam Challenge 11: (Name of your entry).
• Please use the #poetryslamchallenge tag so that your entries can be easily found and processed.
• You can use gifs, jpg, png, etc in this post as long as you cite sources.
• A total of 4 entries will be selected for the next round: Community Voting! I will be choosing the 4 that will advance to the voting round to compete for the Steem Prizes!
• The community will vote on these 4 poems. Upon close of the Community Vote post, the poem with the highest amount of votes will receive 1st place, second highest 2nd place and so on. Based on liquid steem/sbd, there will also be honorable mentions. All of my Slam posts are set to 50/50 to raise rewards for the winners.

I have an idea about what some of you might put in your message bottle, but I want to hear from all of you! Good Luck!

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Gifs were sourced from GIPHY.com and Image was sourced from Pixabay

Have you started your story yet for the 1st Steemit Story Slam Challenge?!? Check out the details, and get writing! The Story Slam ends on Friday the 13th!