When the words are spoken, the tears remain as a scar;
so the pain will never be forgotten.
The writer, lost in her head, taps her pen anxiously.
The lines blur to a sea of blinding white-hot pain.
“Here,” pressing palm to chest, “is where I’ll feel it.”
The reading eyes dance across the page, “such raw emotion,” they say.
She pictures her words crawling up the back of her throat,
like angry ants pushing their way through her teeth.
Meanwhile, the writer, grown restless with avoidance, makes apologies on paper. The mother, who last night prayed for her daughter, steals away those promises under a heavy hand.
Later the writer lays awake, sleepless.
Sadly, she watches the things she shouldn’t have said creep up her walls,
dropping from the ceiling like poisoned spiders.
Alyssa Chaffee 