Spin Cycle

How clean can you be?

Does it wash away the years,

the hands that held too tight,

the mouths that whispered,

Kneel.

-

The fluorescent tube buzzes—

flat, white, clinical,

bleaching sins but never absolving,

humming like the men

who watched, who paid,

who took.

-

The machine groans beneath you,

chewing ghosts, frothing filth in the rinse,

kneading sweat into seams,

wringing but never rinsing,

stains sinking deeper,

the water runs dirty.

-

So you scrub—

hard, fast, desperate,

fingernails clawing skin raw,

lather foaming red at the edges,

cheap motel soap disintegrating in your grip.

-

Scalding water hisses—

open skin sizzles,

salt in the wounds,

bruises blooming back through the lye.

-

Blood seeps into lace,

sweat dries in folds,

cheap perfume clings to skin

like a debt unpaid.

-

But some things don’t scrub out.

-

You were ember once,

gold-lit, burning,

perfumed in sweat and someone else’s cologne,

thighs sticky with metered hours,

hips swaying to a crimson rhythm,

fingers in your hair, claws at your throat,

heat pooled between tangled sheets.

-

But embers don’t die—

they smolder, they wait,

they sit beneath the skin,

behind the ribs, in the marrow,

where no water can reach.

-

This room is cold,

this city is cold,

this world is cold,

but the hum of the light

is not quite enough

to drown you out.

.