DOGMA

My father made a box from clay in college and now it is my shrine
Filled with findings off the ground
Bits and pieces claimed as mine
Pressed pennies, lonely earrings, buttons, beads, a blade
An agnostic spiritual oxymoron, not jaded, but set in jade
A dogma, doctrine, far from canine, self-betry, self-serpentine
My dogma is inarguable, unbreakable, insecure yet unshakable
Therapized and medicated, yet somehow inescapable
Self hatred spits from the front teeth
my tongue has grazed since I was nine
And the milkteeth sit in a lipstick case
Worshipped within that clay box shrine.
I am older than the heroine of every story I have ever loved
My hair is longer than it’s ever been
My bed is bigger than it ever was
My nose never used to be aquiline
It’s more pronounced than it was originally
Maybe that’s why I sometimes feel
My baby photos don’t look like me
And when I search my nose shape
The search bar prompts “rhinoplasty”
As if different means “must be fixed”
And fixed means plastic surgery

Will my daughter look like me?
Will I hate her if she does?
Will I follow the dogma to the end,
Will will become what was?
Self cult cult classic cul de sac
Looping never end
And all abbreviations only cut it at the stem
EDMR, OCD, SSRI, ASD,
Where is the intersection
Between religion and pathology?
Self hatred and monotony?
It’s horrible but what if
What if
This is how it has to be?
My dogma all consuming

Then what will be left of me?

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Ruby Tilder, 20, Pennslvania - USA ✯

“I am in college studying conservation biology and anthropology and I have been writing for most of my life. I most enjoy writing short stories, novellas and poetry.