Shower/Sacred Space

a.  the shower is the purest place

                                                that you conceptualize as a

                                                young child/ you bathe with

                                                a cousin, lather each others’

                                                hair with walmart soap, smear

                                                shaving cream into letters

                                                across the walls, force special

                                                bath-only barbies to play

                                                scuba divers/ your grandfather

                                                considerately pats you down

                                                with costco towels

b.   you nearly shatter your left

                                                arm at ten / the doctors surround

                                                your meager bones to your bicep

                                                and your mother must shower you

                                                every other day / the sheer shame

                                                of her gracing your breast buds

                                                I’m trying to be quick / you know

c.  a fistful of your hair, your red

                                                cheeks flat against the porcelain

                                                an essential virgin still/ a shadow:

                                                shh, stop whining. it’s fine.

d.   during your trauma week, your

                                                wife takes all the showers with

                                                you/ she quietly washes the

                                                teal dye from your hair/ she 

                                                speaks softly I know, we’re 

                                                almost done/ she tries her best

                                                to reclaim your sacred hollow

Sara Sage is a twenty-something, experienced writer who has been composing literature since she could hold a crayon. She graduated from Hollins University in 2018 with a Bachelor's in English and subsequently has been published twenty times in literary journals across the country. She believes in the power of elevating our stories through sharing the most tragic parts of ourselves.