I Ask for Perfection

I Ask for Perfection

Alexandra O’Sullivan

I ask for perfection from you
because I cannot handle
my own lack of it

requiring from your skin
lashes that would serve as a sacrifice
for my own inability to submit

desperately seeking to tax
other desperate souls
to make up for my own eternal debt

I am Cain
I am Joseph’s brothers
I am the Pharisee shouting out your death sentence

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Alexandra O’Sullivan
Poet & Stay-at-Home Mom

Photography by Alyssa Hurley