Open Palm | By Jamie Etheridge
Updated: Dec 19, 2020
I slapped him hard just to hear the sound All the while thinking This isn’t me My hand couldn’t shoot out Open palmed And connect with skin So smooth So young Youth oozing from his pores Like stench from an open sewer drain After a particularly nasty rainstorm
I slapped him because I could Because he’d grabbed What wasn’t his And it felt good That connect The hard, wet smack of it The slick, sweet sting of it His tears a bonus.
Jamie Etheridge’s creative writing has been published or is forthcoming in Eastern Iowa Review, Every Day Fiction, Inkwell Journal, Potomac Journal, Mothers Always Write, Red River Review and Wild Word magazine. She can be found on Twitter at @Lescribbler. To read more of her work, visit her website at Lescribbler.com.