Fortitude

{Image to come:}

                                                                               I'm a bad person.

                              That's how I know I'm good:

                                I'm well enough

                      to know I'm sick,

To think, “It's understood

I'm thinly strong

      and in control;

         I'm barely doing right.

                        I'm thickly scared

                                         and volatile

                        And nearly in a fight

                            With any man

                                   I think I'd

                                    break (just to

                                         prove I'm not

                           The scaredest, or

                        the meakest, or

             Softest in the lot),

And with every

woman I can

  overpower (to

     quell that trembling

 ache of lacking the calm

               to draw her in, so

                       Tense with the urge to take),

And with every piece

    of evidence

       against me (to

                              dream I'm good,

             To dump out the ash

               of innocents I've

                         wronged). It's understood.”