it snaps at me, always within reach of my
flaking skin. i was done with you, i
whisper. the elastic whips at me, curls
around my wrist, yanks me back. it stings
you don’t realize
it wraps tighter, hot iron on my bones
kissed someone else
i did tried to snap the rubber
(on the cheek) (make you
jealous)
did it work?
my lips were ink and his cheek
was the sand
yours would be paper, i think
cupid’s bow would sink into your
cheekbone of cardstock
i see your face in a laugh / you
stuck your face in a printer’s
scanner a little mutated
mutilated
smile str et ch e d to the corners
off the edge
i hold that paper to my chest
it’s crinkled now, the ink has
bled back into my hands and
wrinkled flesh spills over my cracks
not much of you is left. the
paper
my skin has rubbed off onto you,
you brush it off\
i’m brittle now, do you know
that? i tried to tell you
but all that’s left of me is
rashes and retied
rubberbands_
Sophie Clarkin is an emerging writer and recent Wheaton College, MA graduate with her BA in Creative Writing & Literature and Film & New Media Studies. She received the Helen Meyers Tate Memorial Prize for Original Verse in May 2023 and her work has appeared in Rushlight, the oldest student-run literary magazine in the country. In her free time, she enjoys reading romance books with a cat in her lap.
Featured image by Kenny Eliason.
