can i chalk up my prudish ways to a stifling, arab upbringing?
one where my mother would often comment on the bra strap showing beneath my shirt,
or my dealings with a boy in public;
where *** is never isolated from marriage

i don't care about *** and marriage,
*** before marriage,
but perhaps it is difficult to scrub my mind clear of that kind of thinking

conservative, we called it;
more than anything, it suffocated me

but perhaps i could chalk it up to the first boy
whom i gave the privilege of proving my mother wrong;
proving that *** and love were not mutually exclusive;
perhaps i could blame the boy who abused this privilege,
kissed and touched me of his own accord,
and scarred my appetite for anything that intimate

perhaps he is just an overeager boy, me a shy girl

but here i am,
incapable of kissing another without shaky hands,
the feeling that it is distinctly not right to be here
kissing someone,
despite how much i want to

so who’s to take the blame?