Sandpaper

By Laura Dent

Your word uncorrected feels like sandpaper on my skin.

Snagging at my insecurities

whilst soothing your own
               making brutal what is clear

or is clarity always brutal?

​

There are rocks in my stomach

Glass in my throat,

                        and glue on my tongue

black plastic winds around my lungs.

​

Unbreathable
Unreasonable
to make a presumption,
an instruction,
for the ways I should respond. Hot-headed, fuzzy-eyed and speechless All method vanished,
Gone.