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Here in my bedroom-after-the-war mentality,

I begin to undress

Standing in front of the mirror, looking at myself looking, at myself, I feel all the places you’ve touched me; the places you’ve tempered with

My skin has never felt so naked
My soul has never felt so bare

I’ve never been in better need of burning hot water
pouring over me from head to toes
steaming so hot it suffocates
while I scrub any and all traces of your touch off of my body.

Away from my weary memory.
Out of my mind’s eye and endlessly down the drain
where it won’t be remembered

Where it won’t matter anymore
Where I’ll never feel the remnants of that touch
Where I’ll never feel embarrassment
Where I’ll never feel shame

In a room where an encapsulating towel dries the cleansing water off of me
I will never be able to scrub hard enough to be free.

I can shave myself from head to toe and let it grow back, born again into this life of mine
but I will never be able to be not touched.

No amount of pillowtalk will take this away from my past

It is
tricky
to be alone.

I now have this telling secret no towel can cover.

My body was mine until I remembered.

Now it is almost unrecognizable. Now my body belongs to a different time.

My skin does not feel singularly mine.
My soul does not feel singularly at home.

My ulcer sharply cries out that I can’t ignore this pain

But when you’re standing on the edge of a mountain high crevice, overlooking what you used to know, with a sudden shift in point of view, nothing is familiar.

Once you see, you cannot be blind.
Once you remember, you can never not be
touched.