New poem

Stained

“Out, damned spot! out, I say!...Here’s

the smell of the blood still: all the

perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten

this little hand.”

- Macbeth, William Shakespeare


I’ve contracted this new life:

the ramifications forcing me

to change my clothes, give explanations.

I thought at first

It can be removed,

but its been inside my skin

highlighting the lines at the sides

of my mouth, my eyes,

my fingertips.


My severance of these two lives

requires more answers.

But how do you explain away what was not—

or never will be?

Those answers remain

a stain on the corpse

of my conscience with its

delicate mouth, eyes,

fingertips;

never letting me erase the memory

of the one mistake I fixed.