Hello Poetry
Submit your work and get some sparkles! Create free account
I don’t need things sanitary, I just need them clean. I need them blank and malleable and empty—   bare and impenetrable and deterring: the cold walls of a cloroxed surface the wide base of a lysoled space. Spattered crumbs across a kitchen counter can be brushed off. Calcified toothpaste around the bathroom sink can be scrubbed away. Spilled decisions and the inability to make them— a cocktail of Hennessy and incidental encounters— can be. Can be ignored, and covered up, and forgotten. Can be pushed aside and shoved away and misremembered. Can be obscured and omitted and lied about —sanitary, but never clean. I cannot wash my hands of his sweat. I cannot gargle away his taste. I cannot comb out his fingernails. I may be sanitary, but I will never feel clean.
0
Nov 17, 2016
Nov 17, 2016 at 1:31 PM UTC
In My House
I don’t need things sanitary, I just need them clean. I need them blank and malleable and empty—   bare and impenetrable and deterring: the cold walls of a cloroxed surface the wide base of a lysoled space. Spattered crumbs across a kitchen counter can be brushed off. Calcified toothpaste around the bathroom sink can be scrubbed away. Spilled decisions and the inability to make them— a cocktail of Hennessy and incidental encounters— can be. Can be ignored, and covered up, and forgotten. Can be pushed aside and shoved away and misremembered. Can be obscured and omitted and lied about —sanitary, but never clean. I cannot wash my hands of his sweat. I cannot gargle away his taste. I cannot comb out his fingernails. I may be sanitary, but I will never feel clean.
something i've been struggling with
kenna-mcc
Written by
Nov 17, 2016
Nov 17, 2016 at 1:31 PM UTC
Request permission to use this poem