Contrition


Contrition


There is a strange sort of distension
in the bottom of my tummy,
stretching the limits of its elasticity
and creating purple track marks
to exhibit the strain it underwent,
all the while collecting the guilt

about which I did not feel guilty.
Now, about to burst, I distend,
and cannot possibly bear to undergo
these ultraviolent moths in my stomach
displaying distinctly foreign markings, 
their message starkly inelastic

in a language equally inelastic.
They chant off-key musings on guilt
to impress upon me that I’m a marked
soul and it is only possible to distend
so far before the fear in one’s tummy
leaks into the life one must undergo.

After everything I’ve undergone
I should’ve known there to be elasticity
in the midge’s wrath invading my stomach
and reaching obscene levels guiltlessly.
I feel disgustingly swollen and distended.
The life I lead has left its grisly mark,

pelting me with accuracy of a marksman.
Of all the beatings I underwent,
none compares to this I give myself, distended 
and grotesque, held together only with elastic
tied into fanciful bows and guilt
produced as a bonding agent in my stomach.

If only you could look upon my poor tummy,
slathered in these jagged, bruised marks,
maybe you could carry a piece of my guilt
as a burden for you instead to undergo.
Since I am not fashioned out of elastic,
there will be combustion following distension.

My ravaged tummy can no longer undergo
the application of these marks, tattoos of elastic
proportions, guilty of my sickening distension.
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