No Confidence

Voices rolled through the door, 
Mum and her friend skimming topics.

I used to linger in hallways,
so I had grown guilt like a pervert; 
my infractions upon any room, 
my impertinence that I might be welcome.

My palm hovered, wary
handle-bound, wrung out courage.
If I could pierce wood
I might enter with poise and purpose, 
but now, it was hating and fearing the not knowing.

When the latch snaps 
every head to attention, that exposure of the mouth of a doorway,
a rabbit frozen between grass and sky,
To witness the moment of my faux pas.

My mother’s voice tore out heedless,
puncturing the cavity of kitchen and corridor:
“Yes she’s lovely...
But she has no confidence.”

I stood there, a foul secret
in a sabre of light.

Lurching between shame and outrage,
I hurt to voice the betrayal
Shame clouded over its silence,
I receded in the hallway, blacking out all feelings.

Yet defiance took my hand,
the single and sharpest shard left,
I broke the resistance of the latch,
Ascended the threshold—

My mouth opened, 
Then slammed a false start.
Still collared with condemnation,
apparition brimming words.

I forced my throat to unlock,
But my words throbbed under pressure;
a stopper against the furious tide,
pain begetting pain, begetting fury—

Of swallowing more words,
Just like these.

Image by Fatema Al Fardan

Holly Darragh-Hickey is an Irish poet and writer. Writing has long been an outlet for her – a platform to catalog life’s challenging moments but also an opportunity to create beauty from darkness. She often writes about the solace of the natural world. Darragh-Hickey has been published in Skyway Journal, Aromatica Poetica and Automatic Pilot and Shine, as a runner-up for the Creative Writing Contest “Speaking Words”. In 2021, she was awarded a place on The Walls of Limerick Mentorship Programme. Darragh-Hickey currently writes for Libero Magazine and is a member of One World and Cork Poetry Collective.