You, my love, will know now

That my manicured and tailored shell

lends to a flailing, festering doubt.

And when my vessel rots away,

I fear that it will mark my unholiness as a girl,

as I have painted the deadliest of sins 

across my ribs and across my skull.

 

Let this be my repent.

 

Let it be known that in times of my suffrage,

of my embarrassment and my uncertainty, 

I have cried hot ooze into my palm,

I have punched and clutched at my skin,

I have become catatonic, and in my panic

I have questioned everything

And I have faltered