memoirs of a poet

I am ever so sorry for not being an infallible, 
senseless creature.
I am sorry for taking up too much space in the ornate box of things that you deem precious. 
I’m sorry for breathing too loudly or being too odd, 
it is my first time alive after all.

My guilt crucifies me,
My guilt hacks at me,
like an axe chops firewood.
My guilt festers within me as a worm does in a Red apple. 
The Red that is etched beneath my fingertips, 
Insatiably grappling with a lack of morality.

The inheritance of guilt sediments it further.
Are newborn girls born with guilt? 
The nurses do rush to scrub the blood and grime off us after all.
They bundle up our arms and legs in pink blankets while our mothers cry bittersweet tears.
We have impermeably altered a woman’s life.
She is no longer an individual.
She is instead a mother.
How could one not feel guilty about that?

Did I cry in my first few seconds alive because I was sharply aware of the torment I put my mother through mere minutes before? 

When I am wrinkled and hardened by guilt,
Laying on White sheets, looking up at a White ceiling,
Will I feel sorry for the machines keeping me alive?

Is guilt the only consistency we feel as women?

One day I will birth my guilt and she will birth hers too.

Imaan