hand of god, game over, go home by Selina Decarlo - LSBI winner 2025
Express Media is pleased to share the Year 10-12 winner of Little Stories, Big Ideas for 2025: ‘hand of god, game over, go home’ by Selina Decarlo (NSW).
Little Stories, Big Ideas is a nation-wide flash fiction literary competition for Australian secondary school students. In 2025, Little Stories, Big Ideas joined the Express Media banner. Entrants write to a themed prompt in 100 words or less, in any literary style or genre. Entries for LSBI Round 1 2026 close on 17 May.
hand of god, game over, go home
Selina Decarlo
till our crowns are oozing sweat hair plastered to our lily pink ears
egos leaking radioactive heartbreak on the court
and i try to console him, rolling in my palm the clean burn of a buzz cut
head of mania thrashing, fuzz green
we’re all melting like elephants and sand
the way his knuckles shift, agitated, under his blue to poppy red veins
slip aside the chakra, like god’s grin
my real smile disappears, concentric
an airless sound
like a tire deflating
i press my lips to the hot raised skin
ribbed like the ladder we all want to climb
Selina Decarlo is an Asian student raised in Sydney, Australia. An artist and writer at heart, she has won the 2023 BR4R Seeking Asylum Poetry Prize, placed as a top 10 finalist in the Young Authors Writing Competition for Columbia University, was featured in the No Tokens Journal Issue 11 as editor’s choice, shortlisted for the 2026 RUSSH Literary Showcase, and more. @selinarosed