Purity culture often uses metaphors like a crumpled piece of paper to represent the idea that a person's worth, particularly a woman's worth, is diminished once her body is deemed "impure" or sexually active. The metaphor suggests that once the body is "used" in a way that deviates from religious expectations, it cannot be restored to its original, pure state. In this poem, the crumpled paper symbolizes the shame and emotional weight that purity culture places on sexual experience, portraying the act of trying to "smooth" the body as an attempt to undo the perceived damage. The repeated rubbing and scratching represent the futile effort to reclaim purity and the internalized belief that the body must be made "clean" again.