The Flames In The Water

There is a shower or a bath that all of us take.

Those of us who have had our bodies violated

And our souls shredded.

The heat of the water is as high as we can bear without melting our own flesh from our bruised, bleeding and broken carcasses,

Husks we do not recognise and may never learn to love again.

We scrub and we scrub until we’re raw,

But even that cannot remove the grime that we see there.

We all recognise the bodies bath in that fire

And the marks they leave behind.

My friend emerged from the bathroom after thirty minutes,

Looking as though she had submerged herself in red paint.

Steam rose from her

And her eyes seemed only half alive.

I knew.

It broke both of our hearts all over again because she realised there was only one way I could have seen it;

I saw myself in her towel.