in the source
I'm thinking of myself in a bath. It's warm, bubbly, and overwhelming. She is next to me, and she kneels by my naked body. She looks at me, and I don't look back. I think if I try, we'll look through each other. She knows she sees me for what I am. She has an air of concern, eyes that look heavy as anchors and their corners are downturned with the weight. Her eyebrows lift softly as she stands up, undressing, and carefully folding her clothes alongside mine that I've strewn across the bathroom. My arms press my legs into my body, knees to my chin, and I stare forward. I'm looking at the distorted image in the faucet, and I think it understands me like I can't. She steps into the bath, and I meet her eyes for the first time.
She kneels, and takes a cold washcloth and presses it to my cheek--firmly--but tenderly. She can tell I have a mind to run away from her touch from the way it seems like I'm trying to sink through the walls. She takes the cloth away and her cold hand meets my jawline. My body is the church echoing the past everyone knows, what I've accepted, but the walls reverberate what I won't repeat to anybody. I've accepted myself now. I wonder if she is accepting me, too. She puts her head to my chest and our limbs move to accept each other, and when her ear meets my heartbeat, it tells her about where I've been. I know she's scared, because I am too. For every second she rests on my body, I prepare myself for the seconds she's gone. I don't remember what it's like when it ends. I never focus on it in the moment, and the imprint never stays. I still feel where you hit me, though. It stings like the church walls when it reminds me about what we know.
I have memories of being in your shower though I'd never stepped foot into it; not when it was yours. I think I've been yours my whole life. I've belonged to so many people before. The plurality insinuates I've been passed on to many people, many times, over many years. I guess they didn't know what to do with me. I don't know what to do with me, either.
Something is inside me and it needs to get out. I've mothered it for too long and now it wants to leave. It's hollowed out my chest and carved through fat and muscle until it found air for the first time. I can feel it there, puncturing my lungs, but it hasn't left. What did you put inside me?