Unfit Garments

Author’s Note

This poem speaks from the tradition of rebuke, not as spectacle, but as summons. It confronts the comfort of judgment, the ease of commentary, and the danger of wearing righteousness without examination. What is offered here is not condemnation, but exposure: a call to turn inward before speaking outward, and to be willing to stand unclothed before truth.

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Hear me now, and hear me well!

You leaking mouths whose sounds are heard long before arrival

for what good is an orifice if it cannot produce value?

You lie there, belly fat accumulating from your knees, and you complain.

You give scriptures and lyrics to all that is wrong and all that is vain.

You compare and applaud those who have fallen, as you predicted.

You call them names and bemoan their weakness

for of course you would know best.

With your roof crumbling above your heads

for of course you would know best.

With ants feeding on your sweetness

for of course you would know best.

Your fingers always outstretched to place blame,

whilst your house lies filthy

and yesterday’s laundry permeates the air.

Get off your high chair

before you grow too fat on indulgence

and can no longer tell your neck from your head.

Your weak ankles can barely carry

the weight of all that ego.

The tailor has come again

to craft you a different shirt,

for you swell in vanity

and fatten on rotten food.

Cleanse your ears and wash your mouth

so the foulness may be eradicated.

With ash and sackcloth, bow your head

palms outstretched to the sky,

face pressed to the earth’s crust.

For if any amongst us thinks himself more worthy,

strip then.

Let us see your insides.

Let us see, indeed,

that which was clothed within.

__ Laurel