About the way I did not know what the shackle meant until boys and men had already tried to break the iron round an ankle too delicate to understand.
This is a poem about laying my body down on many fine lines. About the stories of the first bloody night with the one man who allegedly owns my body. I’m meant to endure to become a woman, useful.
This is a poem about shame and disgust and perversion and ecstasy and madness dancing through the parts of me I was told both heaven and hell reside.
This is about what is lost, squandered on a person who does not think of me now. The grief of feeling like a failure. The fires of a learned Hell burning my feet through my white bridal shoes.
This is about the bruises on the tender places where my flesh and soul meet. The times I indulged where I shouldn’t have. The few I’ve permitted to partake.
This is a poem about the fact that despite knowing better, learned shame surrounding my own pleasure is still enough that I still speak as though I’ve given my Self away…
This is a poem about virginity.