Most nights I do not have to suffer the silence of showers in solitude
I am usually blessed with the sensation of the feeling of my fingers catching the puddles of water
drop by drop
that roll off of your torso,
like the hungry in a dumpster
like a lamb and a lion
like an 8 year old trying to grasp the difference between a metaphor and a smilie
like searching for the last dandelion of the season
eager and starving for it
I battle the drops spilling into my eyes to meet your grimace, teeth bared and eyes shut tight, as they win the war on your front, cascading down your lashes and curls and nose and jawline.
Even in this state, you look delicate and beautiful.
I've always said you were a work of art, a painting, a statue.
Like a sculpture on a frieze on the Parthenon. Or at least a roman marble copy.
Or at least you make me look at you that way.
I always slyly look up in hopes that you're returning the gaze when I'm not looking...
That's when I lose the war, with drops cascading down my lashes, and my curls, and my nose and collar bones.
Tonight your chest was bare and maybe you finally conquered the water
But tonight I'm showering with the lights off, under the distortion of the glow of pink lava ebbing and flowing from behind the curtains and I don't care if I'm alone or standing in an army of soldiers
I don't care if I win or lose
I'll let the stream rush over the contours of my face and mold it until it becomes a grimace or agonized or etched into wry
like it once did the very ground I walk upon and I'll let the steam fog the mirrors and leave dew drops on my shoulders until my bare chest turns scarlet and I crawl into the covers forced into silence