How hot does a shower need to be to burn away thoughts and
clean the dirty? 119 degrees Fahrenheit is apparently not hot enough. After
standing under the pelting scalding spray for half an hour, the thoughts are
still here. I put off sleep, dreading what the dreams have for me tonight. The
prospect of tomorrow’s talk looms over me causing distress. Why is this coming
up now, again? I do not want to deal with this. But I can't keep going with life being like the past four days. Four days that have seemed like two weeks.
When we were talking on the couch downstairs, I felt like I
was shattering all over again. As you talked, I wanted to scream. “Hold me,
reach out and touch me, anchor me because I’m falling apart.” But I was afraid
of being rejected, pushed away, and couldn’t reach out. It took all of my
concentration to hold myself together. I wanted to cover my ears, blocking out
the words leaving your mouth. Words and thoughts and memories and feelings I
hadn’t felt or thought about in so long. I wanted to stop them all. Now I’m
facing the prospect of all these memories again without an anchor beside me.
-Cynic Ninja
