Coming clean

The primary function of poetry is for the poet to express an emotion and for the reader/listener to feel an emotion. Indeed, one of the primary functions of art in general is catharsis -- which means "purging" or "making clean." Such is the subject matter of this poem by senior Landon Soto:

I need to clean myself

I guide the knob towards the red line

Groaning and creaking as it follows my hands

Eventually they relent

Rewarding me with a promised baptism

White water kisses me with warmth

Purging my sins. Making me clean

It circulates through my body like a second bloodstream, hugging me with heat

Purging my sins. Making me clean

I scrub my body of its filth. Scrubbing until my body is polished

Purging my sins. Making me clean.

I submerge myself beneath the surface of the water, enveloping my body completely.

I look at myself under the water

I'm not clean enough.

I snatch the handle of the faucet

Begging it to go further left

Im not clean enough

Scalding white water screams out

I let it drive into me

Im not clean enough

Burning my body, blistering every inch of me

I'm not clean enough

I scrape at my body until its raw and bloody and torn

Ripping away at the layers of my skin

Im not clean enough

Why am I not clean enough

Please let me be clean

I promise i’ll stay clean

I wont make myself dirty

I promise