i bathed with him
and all the bad thoughts
washed away

today for the first time since he left
i bathed without him
and all the bad thoughts
bubbled up and made me feel
like i'm drowning

and i didn't mind

“I am alone but I am not lonely” is what I say to myself. I have thoughts,  words, memories screaming through my body, keeping me busy, tormenting me. Blood drips into the bathwater I substitute for human touch. I can see my pain now, I have a reason to cry, but my bathwater chills and ideas of someone holding me die and I’m alone again, but not lonely. I have dishes to do and I remember doing them with her, and her memory keeps me company. The dishwater chills as I take my time, stretching the moment. Any longer and my hands would numb like my heart. I am alone again, but not lonely. I have a bed to crawl into and a pillow to hold like I once held somebody. I have her kiss imprinted on my memory and I let that lull me to sleep. I am alone and maybe I am lonely.

I swirl the loose skin
of my forehead like the swirls
of stars, in weariness of the world.
My lashes beaded with drops,
from the shower that I was to tired
to dry, blur my vision like the floating boat clouds which blur
the moon to a
wisp
of smoke.
I lie, wet in my towel uncaring that
my body is forming a silhouette
of shadowed dampness on
my bed.

forest flow bathed me,
floating easily with glee;
forest’s flow is me!

Candlelight dancing off the rippling bathwater,
The steam rising off it with an aroma
So sweet,
From the herbs steeped in it,
I’m a goddess,
An empress,
And my nectar is the red wine
Chilled to my preference,
The delicate stem dangling from my fingertips
And I watch.
As the coolness drifts off the glass in lazy tendrils,
Dancing over the surface of the heated water.
I part my lips and exhale gently onto the curve of it
Until the twirling fingers of cold opposing the heat
Swirl desperately,
My breath is the master,
The air the puppet,
And I tilt my head at the first notes of a song that draws me back,
Back to a liason in the dark
With an exotic lover,
The French words slipping over my skin
As silkily as his lips did,
Each verse reminding me of how we celebrated those verses then,
Raucously
Remorselessly
Hedonistically,
Almost as I do now,
With my ambrosia and my rose petals dancing among sprigs of herbs on the water,
With an orchestra hailing my memory,
All by the light of countless,
Flickering
flames.

sadness has been eating me alive
since before i can
remember —

i was bathed in a blue tub
on a yellow table .
as mom smiled and i laughed ,

and  
i remember
nights  
i was loved ,

but
sunlight still seemed to stream on
brown carpet
or on black and white tiled floor,
as
i grew up , or
it rained ///

and
i remember
each
and every
girl ive been,
crying red
and blue .

always ;
i looked at all our toys ,
high up on our mantel

in yellows, blacks,
and
pinks:

i have grown

and yet ;
i remember
there was
me
.