CW: Violence, death
You cut too hard on my throat muscles:
they divvy up, go loose and wobbling,
skitter until I become concerned
about ‘death by asphyxiation’.
When I was ten I didn’t know
that a body could be locked up tight—
rigid while every joint comes apart
in some short-lived
breeze.
The air goes sour
under serpentine weight.
Pressure increases: I’m condensed
into some pseudo precious
stone.
Imagine
if someone wore me
around their
throat.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The author is stood against a pale background, with crisscrossing metal bars. They have shoulder-length purple ombre hair, and half their face is obscured by a sweeping fringe. One eye is visible from behind it. They are wearing dark purple lipstick.
KERRIE C. BYRNE is an autistic, queer and nonbinary writer/cat lover living in Toronto, ON. Their other fiction and poetry can be found in The Temz Review, The Hart House Review, and The Specatorial, and they have been shortlisted for the Friends of the Merril Collection short fiction contest. The rest of the time, they can be found working on Augur Magazine as Publisher—or maybe reliving their glory days as an award-winning collegiate a cappella singer in their bathroom. Find them on Twitter as @kercoby!