memory of a scream.

the mottled red of my skin, long minutes after, in the places it still screams hot, too hot, are perhaps the only places on myself that i trust any longer, that i believe to be clean, left unstained.

i feel as though i should be locked away in some private camp, my personal germany inside my head, for crimes that no one dare speak, so that kafkaesque i stand waiting for a trial that never needs to come. perhaps the only crime i was ever guilty of was forgetting, even momentarily, my own guilt, and so i stare into the showerhead, eyes stinging from the steam, skin crying hot, too hot for all to hear, only no one's listening.

in my mind there is a kind german woman, austrian, even, with children to feed and a husband who spends too much time away. she waits outside the walls of my brain and wordlessly begs her need. her children need clothes, food, soap. and i stand, water running and running and all i can think to offer is my flesh, flesh that i would happily peel off for her, peel off in thick wet strips because it cries too often, because it will not stop saying hot, too hot, even when i have long since deafened my ears to its cries.

long after your throat has lost the ability to make noise and your ears have ceased to hear you scream, i would imagine that it's the vibration, that strong firm intent that lingers in the air-- i think that's what finally takes you in the end.