The Great Mortification

Mortification is a quiet cathedral in my chest,

where echoes of remorse pray to the ghosts of what I’ve lost.

Every confession drips like candle wax

slow and unending, sewing up my heart in waxen grief.

I haunt anyone just like how an unfinished song they wishes to disappear, 

left in shame and in a hollow room pitifully

the echo of a wish no one made.

I was the unopened letter. A handwriting people couldn't read and understand.

Sealed with uncoordinated scrawls that are made with indignity and guilt.

The ignominy existing in a society 

where the people misconstrue my sexuality for my weakness,

each glance from the world scalds like a brand I crouch behind flimsy veils of youth.

Mortified by the brazen glow of my own becoming,

terrified that my own desires

will scatter me to ash before I ever learn to fly.