There’s a Body in the Bathtub and She Looks Just Like Me

Seeing strange creatures floating in the water 

I knew it was time to go fishing in the bath. 

Gathering tacks, needles, safety pins, 

The tools of my trade 

I made myself a hunter. 

There’s horror in the water, though I’ve yet to 

make a catch. 

Blood and guts, things left floating for months 

A body that bears a strange resemblance to 

mine. Bathroom doors stay closed and brown water sours. 

Touch a surface and I’ll tell you what 

lingers. 

Your fingertips are sticky. 

No water from the tap, rinse your hands in the bath 

Don’t think about what festers. Don’t think of movement Don’t think of things that grow, that slither, 

And for God’s sake, don’t peer at the maggot-eaten caverns of my eyes and search 

for your own blue. 

You don’t have to visit 

The door stays closed 

And I, the body in the bath 

Don’t cry out. 

You shake me from my sleep 

Slap my cold cheeks 

Shake bloodless limbs 

and beg me to tell you 

How different we are 

Let me decompose 

Your turn will come. 

I enjoy the shiver of water picking apart 

my cells. Relax your muscles, and know 

That you are just a mass of dirt. I see seeds sprouting in Your armpit and earthworms on your breast 

The world is rotting you 

Join me in the water. Tree-trunk-coloured, mosquito larvae squirming

If you could sew closed your crevices you would 

I know because you tried it on me 

I bear the scars 

Even on my rotted form 

My hands remember where you burned them with scalding water And my flesh remembers the sting of sanitiser in fresh cuts 

My arms recall losing flesh to your untrimmed fingernails 

My belly remembers the shape of your slamming fist 

You had imagined in me 

A parasite that wasn’t there, 

Still, 

You pummeled my pelvis 

Until you were sure there was no life 

In my bloodless womb. 

When there was red in the water 

I could have cried for joy 

Were it not for the creeping thought 

Like swamp mud closing around your toes 

That the risk was now real, not the imagining 

Of a frantic child 

There’s blood in the water 

Trash, beer dregs, used tampons 

Everything I feared was on the bottom of my shoes. Dead now, I don’t mind 

Though I can see you flinching 

The way you do 

Away from door knobs and cup rims. 

I gargle mud and drink the spit of strangers, 

Don’t be horrified 

One day, you’ll decompose 

Or your panicked organs will sit in someone else’s body

And, in any case, 

You and I will merge 

And these creatures will enjoy your flesh 

As they have relished mine. 

There’s no catch for you here, 

You’ll never get your hook between my lips 

No other festering pond will yield better results

So rot. 

No one loves you for your cleanliness 

No one loves you like I do, 

Your prey, 

The filth that meets your gaze

From the bathwater