Sarah Edmonds

It started with a sweet tooth

And my words

Dripping honey smooth

From my mouth to the page

Dreamy worlds and fairytale endings

I thought you were the answer

 

I was on a sugar high

Until I crashed

Your words no longer igniting a warmth in my chest

But grinding bone on bone until I need to lie down

You called me sweetheart today

Before chewing me up and spitting me out

Like a stale piece of gum that lost its flavor

 

This is the best life gets

I tell myself in the dark

Five hours into a sleepless night

Begging for a moments respite

From the sweet nothings

You whispered in my ear all day

 

When I write about it

I put emphasis on the “nothing”

Your words give me toothaches

Not because they’re sweet

But because I’m grinding my teeth

Against your insincerity

 

I think to myself

Just because it looks like sugar

Doesn’t mean it isn’t salt

I am bitterness and pain

Wet anger and a dry sense of humor

There is no sugar here

Only vitriol and acidic rage

 

You call me sweetheart and it ignites a fire in my chest

Gnashing teeth gnashing bone

It’s all the same in the end

I bite my tongue and turn the other cheek

But I am not that sugar sweet