Apologies for Making the Conversation Awkward*

Chrissie Demailly
 

There are shards of gravel under my tongue, that

grate it like barbed wire

every time I raise it to say more than "yes" or "thank you".

When I went to the doctors', he

told me he couldn't hear them

when he scooped me up and shook me, so I must be a liar.

 

But lies are things I can only swallow

as easily as a cactus;

lies lie in the arc of the August sky and spit at me;

this fact hurts as badly as the marathon

between words and meanings.

The brick wall between our breaths as I try to reach,

 

shot in half with the social-cue crossbow.

My words do not cook golden in

the midday sun; they boil like overheated tarmac, flinched-at stones unthanked

for wishing to pave the roads -

Gravel that sticks between broken teeth like toffee.

​

(*will land badly by accident as well, probably)

​

 

Chrissie Demailly is a 19-year-old creative writing student from the North West of England, interested in poetry and gothic fiction. When they're not completely self-indulgent horror/fantasy, Chrissie's works focus on the social and emotional ups and downs of neurodivergence, especially autism, ADHD and OCD.