Dust by Sarah Rose-Cherry

Dust

I’ve often wondered why

there are no

breakup songs

about friendship.

No love ballads for long-lost ghosts

who taught you the shape of words

in laughing tongues; who

crimped your hair with

curling tongs and soothed

your nerves with smooth complicity

in this

power imbalance.

They wanted you to take up space (but

only a little).

They wanted you to raise your voice (but

not too loudly).

If you took from them, they retracted.

If they took from you,

you gave

too much.

They asked for your insides and

you pulled them out with

bloody abandon as if

to say, ‘I offer myself

as a sacrifice. Consume me

red-raw

with your love.’

My boundaries were their blisters:

well worn and painfully overstepped.

I never learnt how to say NO

to a friend.

Instead

I chased the ghosts; shadowed them

for their fire and choked

on the ash of

their leaving.

I love them still but

I can’t stomach the taste

of their dust.

Find more from Sarah on her website and give her a follow over on Twitter & Instagram. More of her work is published right her on Baby Teeth, and in our Never Heard of Them Anthology!

Executive Producers

Sue White

Daniel Henson