It is just human touch, did it ever kill? | Teen Ink

It is just human touch, did it ever kill?

January 31, 2024
By Anonymous

I am tipsy tequila and it tastes

like Percy Shelley all over again like our tongues

a mess of ragged knots, like your mom didn’t 

raise you; I refuse to drown in it.

I kept my curtains closed. My legs 

shut and used my voice just like I

was told. 


I trembled alone at the dinner table, grief is

the only thing in front of me. I am not ready,

I wish I was. “But there it is in front of 

you. It doesn’t wait for dinner to be served before

it takes the seat”. 


Every atom of my

body hissed. 

Every shred of my skin…… aching. 

Every

crack of my bones 

nagging.


Mom once said: “angels come in

dreams.” There he was inking tragedy’s all

over my body. 

With hands, all over 

my body. I don’t know how to stay quiet with so

much blood in my 

mouth. 

He says he could narrate a story with 

the scars on my skin.“  Wash the dishes once you’re 

done” he’d say. 


Crush me within your palms, shatter me for dinner and

devour me for breakfast. 

Leave nothing 

behind 

not even for the birds, leave alone me. 


Eat me up. Eat me up. Eat me up.


It’s too late to apologize now. Sorry means nothing 

when you’re swallowing my leftovers.


Tell me are you still hungry? Is there 

anything left to domesticate?


My spirit?

Me?


The author's comments:

Around June 2023, Vanshika published her first Poem Anthology. It explores human condition, weaving together dark and metaphorical themes that often inspired me. The poems are intense and passionate, exploring themes of love, loss, death, and mental illness with raw honesty and unflinching insight. The use of imagery, symbolism, and metaphor is often startling and visceral, and the poems can be both beautiful and disturbing. These poems are not for the faint of heart, but they are deeply rewarding for those who are willing to engage with them. It highlights fragility of humanity and the wild allure of nightmares, something that resonates with the internal agony that somewhere resides within us all. It acts as a vessel, encapsulating tears and laying bare the vulnerability within us all, like a mirror to the intricacies of existence, hoping they resonate long after the pages have been turned.


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