Honey Sweet

• Charlotte Allan, Grade 10, Abbotsleigh School
• Poetry
• 2021

Excellence Award in the 'Play On Words 2021' competition

Her promises taste of mellow, dripping honey
Eyes drinking me in, swallowing me into a sickly darkness
Sweet as auburn syrup
Every word envelops me, lingers on my tongue
A candied wine that chokes your every breath
Rich with age and pride, cloaked in scarlet
She feels like a fading melodrama
Clotted air and wine-stained sheets
Summer fruit that lingers until the turn of suffocating rot
A bitter apathy, that hooks you in with the curl of an outstretched hand
She's the end of an epic, the sour flavour that burrows into your heart
Finery that shines with such decadence, flames that burn so bright
They melt and ebb and dwindle, leaving only ashes on the wind
A captured smile, a velvet brush against your skin
And the honey-sweet melody of long-forgotten laughter