2014-2015, Poem

You’re the Shellfish One

Featured in the 2014 Fall Issue of Rambunctious

You're the Shellfish One
Stephanie Dushay, '16

I'm not your oyster.
You've shoved so much grit
past my lips, down my throat
In the hopes that one piece will lodge
and I'll create a pearl for you
By worrying that dirt into a pile
into a mountain
into an Everest
And watching the sparkling snow settle
in mounds over the buried bodies
of those who tried and failed to climb my ranges of sorrow.
But my suffering is not your tool
and my tiny pearls are tightly guarded behind cold, locked jaws.

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