(I don’t know how I got here,
surrounded by temperance and emptiness)
old habits slide under clothes
and explore cross-stitched hips,
looking for new canvas to stipple
with flesh-wounds and rusted guilt;
(but one day I woke up unraveling,
thoroughly done with all this cleanliness)
angry compulsions knock around my head
under a hail of calcified shit,
like the pebble in my shoe
or a weeping scab on my lip;
(so I unsheathed the knives and got to work,
stripping myself of mercy and forgiveness).
© Nancy Botta, 2019
Wow! That hit so beautifully hard.
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Very nice! I esp. like “surrounded by temperance and emptiness”
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This is terrifying and yet I couldn’t help reading it again. It is raw emotion and measured premeditation…
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I loved your descriptions like “old habits slide under your clothes…” and or the pebble in the show and the weeping scab on my lip…You can really feel your anger..irritation… through your words.
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