when I’m too tired to even sleep;
a pierced tea bag
when caffeine starvation tightly grabs;
the grin of a mischievous child
in a dehydrated classroom;
a flat tyre
on a motorway
that laughs you in the face
whilst you pierce,
driving into thorns of life,
deflating to nothing,
but a mere flappable skin,
an animal carcass cast to the lay-by.
In each defiance
of bladed sniggers
or the belated alarm clock
whilst it chuckles at discordance,
timely reminding me
of yet another fail:
all are losses that mark me blind.
Here, I hold truth:
in each balloon-popped moment:
a collage of realism
waxing and waning into being;
mimicking waves, I spill…
pouring awkwardly over spiky thorns,
disguised as watery crescents,
echoing weaponed promises.
Which truth
shall lacerate my eyes shut?
Stumbling, I shuffle,
eyeing a smudged finish line;
drowning for shore,
I am a bludgeoned fish,
breathless, a black gape of a mouth,
slashed crimson-pink.
Ahead, my track
is laced with thorns:
annoyances, sinful iterations,
mawkish leadened blinks.
Spittle from my mouth
scorns these torn fabrications of life;
each tolling a warning bell,
echoic of my name.
I eye a swinging scythe,
honed and steely-eyed;
passing soundlessly beneath it,
I mouth tinny promises
of heavenly release
to a copper-fringed god,
bearing his own crown of thorns.
Emma is a mother and English teacher. She has poetry published with various literary journals and magazines. She writes flash fiction, short stories and novels. She is currently writing her sixth novel.
