cinnamon thighs and daddy boys • poetry

year 9

another year. i was running my usual errand of dropping off your lunch at your table when your voice came out. short and quiet, as though rusted from years of neglect. it had. your air bubble was getting heavier day by day. the moisture of your tears unspilled kept accumulating around you.

"you can sit, you know." boy, could i have gone off on you then. i could have walked away. i could have yelled and screamed and swore at you for how shitty you'd been to me. i could have slapped you. i had the upper hand now. i was the one who had the power here. i guess you realised that too, because your breath caught and your eyes flinched and the honey pot tilted. but my mama raised me to be a refined, polite lady. so i sat down, and didn't say a word.

we ate our lunch in silence. your eyes kept darting up at me. for once, you were the prey. but i still didn't play predator. your air bubble kept getting heavier and bigger. i could feed its humid waves panning and condensing on my face. i wished you would just cry already.