1 min

OBSIDIAN REFLECTION

By Paul Adam Short

When I sought your acceptance

The only words I heard

Were slick-black and cloying

Spat with furnace-heat

People talk

About wiping the slate clean -

At what point do you stop?

I gave up after the fifth sponge

Too absorbent

And getting the tar-black

To turn sun-yellow again

Took too much effort

Crushing the slate -

To gravel -

So I could I trample all over you

Like you did to me

Was easy

But made me feel guilty

The foam sponges

Once springy-soft golden

Became twisted black lumps

Of obsidian

Reflected my spirit

Full of searing anguish

So I smashed them apart

Like the brittle things they had become

Now I am a tapestry

Sand-like grains of self-hate

Coat the fragments

Of my self-worth

And the good I feel

Smoothing the edges

So they blur.

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