Twenty minutes, lost. I though I had been under my steadily flowing deity for hours. I thought I had had a spiritual experience lasting longer than Genesis. But it was only twenty minutes. Twenty minutes Of standing naked under falling water, feeling soap suds and scratchy cleansers and sharp tangles Cleaning my skin and my soul of my physical reminder of my connection to the river To the world Thinking only flesh and water, flesh and water. It was the mantra in my head. We are all just flesh and water. I was ripping through the harsh curls of my hair thinking flesh and water Flesh and water. I caressed my goddess, my god, my spirit, natureβs spirit When I caressed the showerhead. I saw it clean me of the plankton of the natural water and replace it with synthetic chemicals To keep me sanitary and acceptable. Twenty minutes. It felt like that was how long it took for the blade to run across my skin, my wet-and-dry-sand skin. Twenty minutes running up from the product of the hills to the home of my womanhood. I noticed how the man-made razor matched a section of veins on my wrist. Twenty minutes. In twenty minutes that were actually twenty lifetimes I became Pocahontas, daughter of Earth and sister of water. I felt my connection to what sustains me and it changed me. How did twenty minutes seem so long Under the florescent lights?