stop bath

most of my regrets         have to do with water, light    filtered through shower curtain, your skin          like yellowed paper. i sat on bathroom                  tiles cold like clammy hands i didn’t want to hold and waited for you. i didn’t think to be embarrassed then. neither                           of us could sleep that night.        the floorboards creaked and    only now do i feel guilty about sneaking into bed with you. but that was months ago. in a room         i’ll never see again parts of us have begun to die. they say that every seven years your body replaces      each cell it has ever known. soon i will be new again. some nights in my dorm room i wake up crying and there’s nothing                          humble about it. when moonlight spills across    my bed like ilfosol-3, gets caught in my throat like a soreness, it isn’t because i miss you. rather, the dark room at my old high school where i used tongs to move your picture from one chemical bath to another. in a room i’ll never see again your face develops right in front of me. stop bath, 2014 by Allegra Lockstadt