They crowned me maiden-marked with no coronet,
No rite, no reckoning, no alphabet.  
From chalk to chastity, the shift was swift
A girl unasked, yet forced to drift.  

Uncles morphed to bro, aunties to sis,
As if age could be erased by this.  
The same mouths that once fed me lore  
Now ask, “When will your parents unlock the door?”  

From half-pan hymns to full-pan chains,
From innocence to encoded stains.  
From Ma’s lap to lone lamp-light,
From lullabies to legal fright.  

They speak of the binding rite, not of mind,
Of bridal veils, not truths unlined.  
They offer vows, not volition,
As if my body’s their admission.  

Some changes chisel, some changes choke,
Some stitch your soul, some slit the cloak.  
Some come like guests with garlanded grace,
Some barge in, branding your face.  

But I
I ink my ache in harf and flame,
I ritualize what they rename.  
I rhyme the rupture, sanctify shame,
I forge a scroll they cannot tame.  

So let them call me maiden-marked, miss,
I’ll answer with a serpent hiss.  
For I am not what they decree  
I’m carticity, not casualty.

The realm extols conjugation’s creed,
But I discern a veiled stampede
Of shackled vows in velvet guise,
Where sovereign souls are canonized.

👁️ The Covenant of Clasped Rings
A gilded snare with spectral strings.  
To cede your flame, your soul-scroll’s lore,
To one who claims your inner core.

I’ve charted stars, inscribed my name,
Not to be stitched in someone’s frame.  
Not to be paused, not to be tamed,
Not to be blamed when joy is maimed.

🎭 The Duet of Domestic Grace
A masquerade in tethered lace.  
No one blooms in bridal cage,
They wither slow in silent rage.

And if it’s just for flesh and skin,
Is that the gate where truths begin?  
If passion’s price is self-erasure,
Then let me guard my soul’s own treasure.

💔 Parental love a sanctified flame,
Unbranded, boundless, free of name.  
But this duet of spouse and spouse?  
A staged affection, haunted house.

So let me clutch my soul-scroll tight,
Let me script my own birthright.  
No vows, no veil, no muted scream
Just me, my truth, my sovereign dream.

🌑 The Ceremony Unchosen I defy,
To trade my stars for borrowed sky.  
Let others dance in tethered grace,
I’ll walk alone, but not erase.

In the vestibule of youth, where dreams ferment,
They call infatuation “maturity”—how quaint.  
But I, a cartographer of sanctified time,
Refuse to mortgage my becoming for a borrowed rhyme.  

Let them chase trends like moths to neon flame,
I walk in cadence with my own name.  
Commitment, not to another’s orbit,
But to the constellations I’ve yet to inherit.  

This is the era of cerebral bloom,
Not of vows whispered in adolescent gloom.  
Why tether wings to transient winds,
When the sky itself awaits what my spirit rescinds?  

Premature pledges fracture the spine of purpose,
Stretching us millionfold from our sacred corpus.  
Love, when summoned before its season,
Spoils the soil—defies reason.  

So I remain uncommitted, not unfeeling,
My solitude is not silence, but healing.  
I am the free bird, not caged by trend,
My sanctuary begins where false rituals end.