art by Paula Mihele on Etsy
I lay in the tub
I was just
bathing
To the
outsider it might have seemed
A scene
fresh out of a horror flick
They said,
'No, it's not a trick
Look at her,
pale and trembling
Arms
splayed, fractured bones of a broken wing
Look at her
sitting so still, wide-eyed
She's a form
that can never abide
By time, by
place, by reality, by universe
She's too
much for us, she might coerce
Us, to sit
there drowning with her for company
Let us thus
abandon her, she is one, we are many
She cannot
pull us down with her!'
I was just
bathing
My chest was
covered by the water
You couldn't
see me naked
Maybe just
the sticky strings, all vividly red
I was
bathing and bleeding, you see
Because
every word outside cut me
What had I
done wrong? Was it
Really that
awful to simply sit
And let them
see me as I was?
Every person
that tried
To lift me
out, to stretch me wide
To fit with
them, in them
Failed. And
then lied in tandem
To the world
that I was unfit.
Then some
tried to sit
With me and clean
me
And pull me
into them, to see
If I would
fold and lean
Forever into
them, forever unseen.
They failed
too, and lied in tandem
That I was
unworthy of them.
All I wanted
to do was bathe
And rise.
And do everything
That I was
supposed to have done
If they
hadn't pounced and cut me
I wouldn't
have bled and stared
And they
couldn't have called me a ghost
I was in
terror more than being a terror.
You see, I
hadn't ever expected this, so
Maybe they
were right after all.
