They called it love, but it was always an autopsy in disguise. I mistook their thirst for warmth, let them sip the soft from my soul until I became marrowless. Night folds me like parchment, its ink soaking through my pores, turning my skin into scripture I never consented to write. I am stitched from yeses I never whispered, just to be worthy, just to be wanted. My skin is an elegy now, a ghost wear of guilt I carry like a second spine. I claw at it, not to bleed, but to unbecome. To tear open the rind of this body and find the girl beneath who never owed her bloom to bruises. Men, older than my memory, feast with their eyes as if womanhood were ripeness and I, a peach meant for rotting. Their gaze lingers like cigarette smoke in cathedral halls, sacred ruined by want. I remember their hands. filthy psalms upon my flesh, each touch a sermon preached in violence. They say love is giving, but why does it feel like theft? I surrendered my body as proof of devotion, thinking maybe. if, I unlaced myself enough, someone would see the soul curled inside. Now I ache to peel it all off skin, scent, softness let it slough like serpent scale beneath moonlight. I am not a hymn for their hunger. I am not desire’s debris. Let me molt. Let me disappear. Let me be born again without the myth of needing to be touched to be treasured. -lai