The jacket, with every leather scratch and frayed stitch, strangled my body like a psych ward patient. Fighting every urge to rip the pieces of chrome-tanned hyde that's slowly suffocating me. Concealed from the outside, the epicenter of my life remains unseen, hidden by this grotesque, bulky, ill -fitted outerwear. Jacketed with embarrassment, coated with mortification, stitched together with the remains of a harmless creature. The organic, skinned animal covers what is truly within. Dressed in a lie, coated in deception, and stained with red— because to you, you do not know what is hidden, to me, I am hidden beneath this—jacketed.