The Skin Is Very Happy To Grow Around Things

The Skin Is Very Happy To Grow Around Things[1]

She liked to stare at the pale pink
flowered wallpaper, that reminded her of the living room
at her grandmother’s house. She paused to examine
the mold stains, that had gathered
around the rim of the bathtub. She would linger,
only for a moment, to read an old issue of Dirt Bike.

She began a study of the black hairs
that grew in the caulking between the tiles.
One day she grew oh so tired, and decided
to rest for a bit, only a bit on the floor, and she became
fixated on the nails and little brown curls and mats of hair
that had attached themselves to the base of the toilet.
The ceramic felt cool on her skin, and she thought
a little longer would not hurt; after all
she had yet to examine the space behind the sink.

This world, so vast, yet to be discovered and she sits
counting the dead bugs in the lamp
and peeling back pieces of wallpaper to see
what lies underneath.
Her boyfriend brings her fried chicken
and they eat together, balancing greasy paper plates
on the edge of the bathtub, on the exposed toilet seat,
and they wipe their faces on the diamond imprinted
toilet paper.

Upon her inspection of the walls next to the shower,
she discovers these streaks, these stains
that are brown and orange and shaped like teardrops.
They are smattered on the wall, and she finds it
horrifying to imagine this coming out of the shower-
head and then being smeared across her walls, across her
body, so instead she make her husband wipe a sponge
over her until she feels like too much dirt has been removed,
and she is left uncovered; exposed.

Water in plastic, skin on porcelain, paper on skin:
this vast opening, the C beneath her butt-cheeks,
it is comforting, and he, still sometimes delights her
when he brings her a flower on Valentine’s Day,
a turkey drum on Thanksgiving and a potted plant
strewn with tinsel for Christmas.

And every night before she goes to sleep,
bending at the waist, to rest her head
upon her knees, her feet on the floor,
sweatpants around her knees, and her skin:
growing so lovingly around that which holds it.
Her boyfriend comes in, smiles;
“Please come out?”
“Maybe tomorrow”





[1] http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/13/768309.aspx - A statement made by Dr. Daniel Aires, as an explanation as to how a woman could become physically attached to a toilet seat.