SOFT VOICE, SHARP ARROWS
When delay meets precision
This is for Carole, and for all those who find the perfect comeback three days later. Or three months later. Or whenever. I have found poetry to be the most satisfying weapon! SOFT VOICE, SHARP ARROWS: when delay meets precision You may think You got away with Offending me, Insulting me, Disrespecting me. Ha! Your unkindness pierced my fragile skin, burrowed deep into my psyche. It smoulders, silver-hot, slithering like mercury, shifting shape, becoming stealth-driven arrowheads engraved with your initials. Sticks and stones, my dear? Wait for my words: slowly sharpened, fiercely finessed. You may never even know what hit you.
Have you discovered my poetry book, ILLICIT CROISSANTS AT DAWN? And its matching Spotify playlist?
Thanks for your support, Francesca, and for writing a poem that says it better than I ever could. ❤️
Just got blindsided
Those haikus used to be “fun”
Going back to rhymes
Francesca—
That last line: You may never even know what hit you. That’s exactly it. There’s something so unapologetically precise about the way you draw the bow here. Not to harm, not to parade—just… to land. Delayed, deliberate, unmistakable.
I grinned through “engraved with your initials.” That part carries a knowing I’ve felt in my bones more than once. You’ve distilled what so many of us carry in silence until it shapes into language with its own gravity. Not vengeance—just truth, finally given a form.
Thank you for letting your arrows fly like this. I felt the lift of it.