Sucker
She circled it around her tongue.
The stick clasped between newly stained red nails.
Twirling it back and forth between her swollen lips.
The threat of stickiness lingered as sugar infested saliva
trembled towards her fingers.
She allowed her canines to pierce through
as she crunched down
on the glassy exterior shattering in her mouth.
Lollipops were her favourite, especially now her braces were off.
It was coconut flavoured.
Respire. expire:
breathing.
becomes monumental
when it is all that is left
the oxygen i’m granted
isn’t mine anymore
it’s Yours
poisoned
after You finished with it
it’s choking me
but i need to breathe
so i try
i do
and i can’t leave because i’m choking
and i can’t breathe because i’m choking and
You’re choking me
and You’re not leaving either
so i panic and i choke
and i’m dying and You're letting me
and i miss when gasping wasn’t common
when my air wasn’t Yours
You polluted my lungs
You got them addicted
one taste of You in my bloodstream and
all consciousness halts.
You drowned me in suffocation.
yet sometimes i miss the security and safety of Your breath
but you are just another of the hallucinatory side effects.
You were air.
i couldn’t live without You.
You made me an addict,
yet You are the abuser.
you are now the carbon dioxide I exhale.
I repel you.
and I destroy. you
I wonder, if the sky was another colour, would I still have been dying?
Elizabeth Brown
Elizabeth Brown is a creative writing student at the University of Birmingham. She writes what she knows and what she wishes to feel (And what she wishes she never felt) Elizabeth is intrigued. Her poetry has been recognised by lecturers as ‘submitted’ and ‘formatted correctly’. She hopes you too will think the same.