Destructive Perception

the cost of inmodesty

By: Brooke Nichols

This poem is part of the Claritas fall 2024 issue, Margins. Read the full print release here.

Bodies on display,
with eyes they’ve been defiled.

The pleasure
that was once meant to be enjoyed in secret is now diluted
from over-exposure.

Curves here.
Curves there.

What about the form of a heart? And how it curves?

Bodies aren’t the only things that beat
to a rhythm.

A heart pulses unseen.
A body moving for a scene.

Do the eyes even care at all? They seem so genuine...
yet deceiving.

Flaming arrows is what they are!
Flaming arrows that are warm–at first glance.

But they burn, they stick,

Bodies on display,
with eyes they’ve been defiled.

they hurt.

Is everyone allowed access? to our secret place?