He came to me
Everyday with a smile
Blinding my reality
Not letting me see through the smoke
Fighting my way through
Coughing up tears
Breathing in ash
I would try to run away
Yet somehow
Grabbing onto my skin
Pulling me with his strong grip
He could always lure me back
I would suffer an injury
Bleed and bleed
And he would be there
To kiss the wound better
The knife he had held
Just a bloody phantom
Behind his back
I still haven’t learned
How I could have ever believed
It would turn out different
His smile was always too wide
And there was nothing ever underneath
A soulless model of something
I would have done
Anything for
My god in golden rays
Saint on everyday
With horns and fangs
That I thought were to keep me safe
About the Author
My name is Lili, I’m from Hungary and I’ve always been in love with writing. A lot of the time it’s how I express feelings that are too hard to explain in speech. When I’m not writing I read books and comics, watch movies or spend time with my family. I fell back on my writing during JC, but in TY I feel ready to set off, and so I’ve sent a short story to Paper Lanterns and I’ve won a small writing competition in my school. Small things, but I’m working to do even more!
Editor's Note
The sustained, grotesque, supernatural imagery that develops throughout this long, dramatic poem works really well to depict an abusive relationship in a surreal, symbolic way: every verse brings a different aspect of the speaker’s struggles to light, and I quite like that there isn’t any ‘closure’ or resolution, because there so often isn’t in real life. We can guess from the use of past tense that the speaker in the poem is free from the clutches of the ‘monster’ they describe, but we don’t know, and that makes the poem intriguing. There are some really memorable lines, like ‘The knife he had held / Just a bloody phantom / Behind his back’ and ‘ A soulless model of something / I would have done / Anything for’ which just pack so much experience into a few phrases. Very thought-provoking!