Call

You show up
after the call,
skin scrubbed to a soapy tightness.
Hair conditioned, dried, and falling on your shoulders.
When you leave the next day,
a businessman passing thinks,
“She hasn’t cleaned up in days.
Must be a break up”.
In the quiet of your own sanctuary you refuse to wash anything away.
The toss of hair grazing your nostrils fill your buds with smells you memorized;
his sweat, his smoky breath……his bed.
You can’t wash away that which electrifies.
Every nerve and synapse
awakens at the intake of air that has the night’s reminder.
Hours pass
to days.
Nothing.
With a new shame
and frustration,
washing the lingering events off
becomes the new obsession.
In that moment
of the detoxing scrub
that turns your scalp a bright pink
and your skin burning as water flows over it,
you inhale new breath and clarity.
Then
You get the call.