I have not a drop of blood left in my bones

that hasn’t drained for you.

There is sorrow in this violence buried

where power has consumed,

and taken her last breath.

I have never had my dreams so shattered

by a hand so cruel.

To give, then demand my head

bowed in shame at your own pleasure,

my meekness only met with tempered rage.

Once, I asked you for a minute’s peace.

You gave me years of isolation.

Stunned I was so easy to forget

when you always held me in your grasp,

I slipped away into the hours.

Waiting.

You called one uneventful evening.

Bored.

The weight of my pain had never been so lightly felt.

Sarah is currently a PhD student in Linguistics at Cambridge. She has most recently authored a libretto (The Trouble with Ire) to be set to music by Cambridge student Daniel Quigley and published a short story in Hypaethral Magazine. She holds a BA (Hons) in Linguistics and Phonetics from the University of Leeds and a combined MSc in Educational Neuroscience from University College London and Birkbeck College.