Tomorrow sees the start of our first ever ‘Friendship Week’ in Franciscan College Gormanston. Here is a poem that is relevant this week, as well as every other week of the year.

‘Bruises Heal’
by Andrew Fusek Peters and Polly Peters

Names, cold shoulders,
Silence in the canteen;
Her words are scapels.
Cutting self-esteem.

‘Stuck up little cow!
Thinks she’s really it!’
Laughter slices, she prescribes
A sharp, unfunny wit.

Ridiculed for standing out,
My marks are much too high
And so she drip-feeds saline hate,
Injecting with a lie.

She’s bright, she’ll find
The weakest spot to pierce and prod and poke
She uses stealth, and poisoned words
And wears them like a cloak.

It seems I am her favourite game
And I’m the one who loses,
If she’d done this with her fists,
At least there would be bruises.

 

Follow this link to hear Polly Peters reading this poem:

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=6076