A Mutual Acquaintance

• Tiaan Vamarasi, Grade 10
• Poetry
• 2021

I lose myself in his words.

For in his words are a safe place.
A safe, twisted place.

In his words, no hopeful dream can hope to stay
because there, fear prowls, eager to consume.

I pray you are deaf to his calls,
for if you listen, his lies will take root in your heart.
A seed that bears no fruit but sprouts vines like a serpent,
growing, wrapping, constricting, consuming, choking, slowly stripping you of life.

Quick! Cover your ears. For secretly he leers.
His words are like a broken mirror,
the most beautiful complexion will always be distorted in it's reflection.

Do not mistake the tight choke of his words for warm embrace
and do not naively think of a stranger, when imagining his face
because as I lose who I am in his words, so do you.