Blood tastes like metal-
but don’t ask me what metal
tastes like, because I don’t
know.

I know what metal feel like.
It’s stiff and heavy
leaving bruises on papery skin
the color of the violets
that some of us pick
to brighten the long
days of fighting and
training.

It doesn’t work.

The smell is sharp.
After a few weeks,
we couldn’t wash it
off, no matter how
we tried.
The armor left marks
and its smell
behind, long after
it is stripped off.

When the leather straps are
undone, the metal falls
to the ground, dull thumps
against the dirt floor,
puffs of dust rising in
clouds, while the metal
clanks against itself.

It clanks while we walk,
too. The Commander
always yells at us
after battles, while
we are bruised and
covered in scarlet,
that we cannot be stealthy.
Well, of course.
If they hear us, they attack.

And when we are in
battle, we are grateful
for the metal plates
until we meet a
strong opponent, who
drives their long
blade of sharpened
steel into us and
then the armor
buckles and cuts
slicing our paper skin
more than the
sword does.

And if they are motivated,
they will drive the blade
even deeper,
piercing through skin
and bone
and muscle and
heart, until the life
is expelled from their eyes, if
they are lucky.

But I wasn’t
and I lie now
with more warm crimson
liquid blooming
out of my chest
with every beat of my
unscathed heart.

So you’ll agree with me,
and you will, because
everyone agrees with
a dying girl,
that metal
does more
harm
than
good.