I am running out of pretty words
to let them know that
my darkness
is not fictional.
It is hidden instead
under crimson lipstick dripping down
blood red sins on the white lace dress
I wore on my First Communion.
My mother does not understand
how my mind, of sixteen years,
has run out of purity—
casualties of fading light
and trembling hands that have forgotten
the dimpled smile on God’s glorious face
the day I was born.
I too, have forgotten that day,
instead dreaming of mornings spent
on my bedroom floor heaven
of rapidly-inflating lungs
and eyes that have seen the reflection of affliction
far too many times to be considered holy.
For I am the sacrificial lamb
slaughtered to the mumbled hypocrisy of praise,
blinded by the guilt
of every mortal sin collecting like bodies in silence;
the sound of shattered souls buried by seraphims.

How much grace can one mortal swallow?

I beg you.
Have mercy on me.