skulls & body language; shower conversations

I am still in the corner of the shower on the floor where the water hits; bent like wavegirl ....as hot as I can take it....seeking some intangible sense for safety

The warmth of the shower water, it is safe; it is like arms that hold and keeps the world away and melts the saline tears.... cleanses the shame and everything that I am —is removed; is void of this world

I don’t hear the bathroom door open; then the shower door, as the draft disturbs just before I hear his voice

“.... min lilla duva....” he says as some chill air enters with his intrusion “....it was a thoughtless joke,” he says

“What was....?”

“Lisa....”

“Oh..... “

I hear the movements he makes as he discards what he wears before he comes into to shower stall with me

“Please stand up from the floor,” he says as he crouches down to me on the bricks of stone tiles, “why are you down there like that?”

I shake my head and don’t want to move. I put my hands over my face

I say,
“no,” and shake my head

“Please stand up,” he says

“No—please let me alone,” I say this but not loud enough for him to hear over the water and shake my head

“Snälla....” he whispers against my ear and I feel his hand go around my shoulder as his other hand goes down my arm and finds the raw flesh from the pumice; it makes me bolt as he presses into the flesh. “What are you doing to yourself?” he asks me now and his voice belies his frustration along with something else I don’t recognize .... and he seems to become worn of his patience,

“get up off the floor,” he says this like a demand but I am not in the mood to listen. I block him out instead. Press my head into the shower wall with some impact like a bang. He shouts at me in Swedish but I don’t try to understand but then he says, as if pleading now, “the bear is gone as well as the deer skull.... duva! It was a stupid and childish thing for her to do. Everyone is angry at her now for it.”

“I don’t care,” I say and shake my head

“Yes you do.”

“No. I really don’t, Jörn—I am so used to people doing things that —maybe— are kind of mean but —it doesn’t even register with me. I don’t even think I notice any more.”

“Well.... you may say that but it is not ok with me.... I don’t think I understood before why the skull bothered you so much,” he says over the water that comes down over us

I think about his words but then instead say,

“Jörn.... she just doesn’t like me.... and I know they don’t either,” I say

“No, that’s not true—look at me, duva, I want to see your face,” he takes my hands from where I press against my eyes.

He makes me look at him when I try to avoid his direct gaze.... but I don’t like it; it makes me feel like an idiot. And I mumble something to him. Still he keeps me there and puts his hand around my jaw to hold me steady, “please stand up from the floor; I cannot watch you do this to yourself,” but it is the intensity within his eyes as he blinks away the water that clump his blond lashes together, an intensity that burns with that kind of supernatural kryptonite that he has that is like some superpower. That all-seeing, all-knowing ageless wisdom like that of a soul that has haunted for lifetimes.

But now he pulls me up off the floor, and lifts me to stand and presses me against the stone tile wall of the shower as he stares into my eyes. I watch his turn red around the gray/blue slate that can go from cool to hot with lightning speed

“Stand up,” he says this even as he lifts me, pressing me into the wall and holds me up,

he raises me up above him, raising me slowly until I am lifted high above him so that he is looking up at me....

he holds me there above him

it is blurry with the water and without any visual aid to see ....

only I see him clear.

I see him

and what his eyes say

he presses me into the wall and puts his mouth on me, and with the water and the mist he kisses my skin as the water runs down; he licks along the trail of water and where it goes

and I forget the nightmare from last night,

I forget the family chorus outside the bedroom and even the deer skull

and reach for him, and tangle my fingers in his hair and pull myself to wrap my arms around his neck, wrap my legs around his hips and move to grip him to take him to me as this need to join to his body washes over every other thought; I say into his ear, I say.....

but no.... this I will not say ....not here anyway