I have plucked feathers from pigeons to write verses in my own blood. I have dedicated poems and songs, laid my voice at your feet, believing art could hold what hurt. But sometimes pain breaks language. Sometimes stanzas are too clean, metaphors too polite, and no amount of rhyme can carry what the body remembers. So I’m not here to sell similes. Not here to dress grief in elegance or polish couplets until they shine. But sometimes pain rots past language. Sometimes stanzas splinter. Metaphors bruise and still don’t bruise enough. So I’m not here to sell similes. Not here with Shakespearean couplets polished like coins rubbed smooth by strangers. I’m here because hurt doesn’t always sing. Sometimes it spits. So I’ll say it plain. I’ll say it ugly. I’ll say it the way the wound says it when no one is listening: you filthy rat, you crawl in my skin, crawling thing, scraped scum, a misbuilt sin. Less than human, hell’s leftover breath, a parasite feeding on living, on death. I spit every name till my throat feels thin— then slowly I turn from the mirror I’m in. Because words shouldn’t rot when thrown at a beast. My mouth won’t be wasted on monsters like me.