I have something I need to get off my chest; it arrests my body up and around the curve of each breast. It is a lacy prison I will detest, I will debase, I will deplore – It’s the place for the boobs you abhor.

They’re prisoners of war, of society, of this patriarchy, and my anxieties as a high school girl in the pool changing rooms and the horror of nips poking through swim costumes. Flatten them down, or wrap your towel tight, because despite the fact you were born with them, their outline invites all mayhem.

Two red buds not for the blooming, but for the breast ironing or the grooming, of girls in countries who don’t have a voice in whether or not sex is their choice.

So nipples, in and away!

Boobs bare in public are an open freeway for gossip, grins, and glares.

Let the public believe that my nipples aren’t mine. Tell the public I fight to live for a time when bras don’t have to clamp me in, with their crocodile jaws and their itchy lace skin, when sports bras are common, not a goddamn sin!

I fight to live for a time when no woman has to sit, and let Brutus with his bra wires stab you in the tits! Et tu, Bra-te?

Let no nipple tape gag them but let them undrape. Let them hang, droop, and dangle from all angles if you wish, but feeling like I must wear this, through the pain of red track marks really takes the piss.

I have something I’ve got off my chest. My boobs in their beauty will no longer be oppressed.

-E.S.A Brown

E.S.A Brown is a student of Creative Writing with English Literature at Bath Spa University. Brown regularly performs poetry at Rhyme and Reason events in the city of Bath, UK, and is interning with this poetry collective in her third year of university. Brown specialises in writing short fiction, spoken word, and prose – many of which she publishes on her blog.