I think I cried in the bathtub again.
I never felt so clean,
yet still so caked in filth.
... I remembered a day in the forest, working on the crew with you.
I stood in the empty trailer of the work truck and leaned against the frame, heavy with despair that you would never be mine.
The night before I met the one who was yours.
You saw my sadness from where you stood, outside and in the group.
You climbed into the trailer and asked me what was wrong.
You took off my sunglasses.
You pulled down my scarf.
All of my naked sorrow for your golden eyes to ponder.
And I told you nothing.
Because it was not the time to tell you what the problem was.
That you would marry another girl and you would never see me in that light.
But that moment when you leapt into the truck, backed me into the side, and forced out my bare face for you to gaze into like a crystal ball; that's a moment I remember as one that told me you felt the same ...
The steam of the tub became the breath in my lungs and I came out soggy with dread.
Thank you for showing me real fear.
I have become it.
I wonder if you'll text again.
"I thought of you today."
Every time you say this is a knife in my side, though not steel like the ones I put in myself. It's the bone of your fingers, clutching my center and caressing my curves.
I tell you every time I see you how much I miss you.
Nothing ever changes.
I looked at my tattoos in the mirror to soothe the ache.
The way out is through.
I repeat it like I'm in church again, talking to an invisible, all-knowing presence with the same hope for granted goodness.
I look at the solar disk on my neck. My god is the sun.
All of my breath, blood and life given from this.
I drink some cool water from a tin cup.
The metal is familiar and draws me in a flashback to a moment of comfort.
It's the feel of the razor on my hip. It's my transformation of the dull pain to the euphoric release.
I need this.
I needed you.