'shower'

The shower calms me. Miniature geysers spray warm currents across my shoulders and down my back. Arching my spine vertebrae by vertebra, I lean backwards into the spherical curtain. The water trickles down the tangled runways of shaggy, blond hair on my forehead. Timid, the aqueous droplets linger on the longest strands that hang at eye level and drop down to my chest – slipping through sparse, scraggly chest hair, past small nipples that are unnaturally low on my body and a slim, flexed stomach that I look at and believe is fit – rolling eventually towards hairy toes. Eagerly, I enjoy the abstracted cascade of liquid warmth that upon contact dulls sleepless hours, months of stress, or simply a bad day. The streams become rivers then floods; toenails and fingertips shoot an excited tingle along the veins and nerves of my arms and legs; water reaches my extremities and a sensation like the opposite of goose bumps runs across my skin; Mouth agape, I inhale steamy mist. Regardless of time or emotion, the constant, thermal blast from dozens of holes in the silver showerhead on the wall kneads my mind into a flowing relaxation: the watery masseuse of the early morning, pre-work hours, of the Saturday afternoon, post-sex moments, of the refreshing thirty-minute break at 3 AM when pulling an all-nighter. Having let the shower coat me in shimmering wetness, I shift slightly back on my heels. I’m immediately drenched. My matted hair plasters to the sides of my head and I stand in the momentary buffer that the careening spray creates between my naked body and the rest of the world.