It suddenly dawned on me, in my shower
as the hot water steamed off my body. Bliss. The calm before the storm.
Blink. Her body wash. On my shower rack.
She hadn’t been here in a… oh, let’s say a very long time. Yet here I was, day after day, week after week, showering here with the months passing me by, never noticing this tiny bottle in the corner of the shower. Men like don’t notice shit like that. But maybe that was the problem. Not paying enough attention to the pretty details. I do not know.
Lavender gel douche (The upper class folk sure know how to self label), in a tiny 40oz bottle. I knew I was over her, yet memories don’t discriminate.
They flooded back. I tried to stick my finger in the dam wall, yet it was futile… like the way she’d bite into donuts with giant, considered chomps, to avoid staining her teeth, or mashed her forehead into mine like she was squeezing the brains out of my skull, like some endearing thing.
I was over her. This was just residual sadness. Like making the last payment of your 24% interest car loan. It was a matter of duty to complete it. Beats bankruptcy.
Pop, off that bottle top fuckin’ went. The smell. I remembered her, vividly. The long blonde hair in braids. We even showered together, here, she held this very bottle.
Then for no sane reason at all, I washed myself with it. It was sad, stupid & depressing. The kind of thing you don’t blog about in the real world. Yet there I was. Butt naked, scrubbing myself with my ex’s body wash. It stung.
I realised whilst it lathered up over my broken body, that we didn’t have to be enemies any more. I let it go. We both moved on to better ourselves, be with people of our kind, work on our goals — ourselves. It was beginning to feel adult. Feel mutual, not a contrite soap opera.
As the water rinse off me, and I saw the dregs of the used-up body wash swirl down, in a circular fashion, down, down into the drain, I felt better — but not enough.
I took that bottle, popped open the top, and poured that motherfucker down the drain.
That’s when it dawned on me.
There would be no meeting of minds, no redemption, no handover of our belongings — just an lonely adult acknowledgement of the peace we made, as we disposed of each others belongings (without the other knowing), in quiet. And that was enough.