Multiple-Limbed

I’ve left you in the kitchen, your back turned, scrubbing Pam off the pans that I know is so burnt on it’ll never come off. Sleeves rolled up to your elbows, you tell me of hard work, of simplicity. And you scrub and scrub and scrub until your nails crack and you have to wipe your forehead with your forearm. But still you shake that rag at me, spraying particles of soap into my eyes so that I have to reluctantly step back, out of your splash zone, into my confusion and subsequent surrender. 

There might be no space for you in the chair next to me, you know. Sure, it’s empty, but my all extra limbs spill over onto its wicker palm and I’m almost certain that there’s no way you’ll fit. You can try, but maybe in advance, I should apologize. For taking up so much space, I mean. You know one me, but I’ve got six heads, twelve eyes, and six mouths. There are words coming out of all of them, but none of them are making any sense. Except maybe one, to you. 

I’ve still to decide whether the pans were any shinier after you were done with them. Either way, please, please still try to sit down. 

I know my faults.

Grey water is bubbling up through the carpet. Sinking feet into soaking fibres, it swirls around the toes, cold wet slipping under the arch of the foot, and curling around the heel. Seaweed slinks in under the door. 

You sit across from me in my white chair with your arms around your knees, white-knuckling your elbows. The birthmarks on your chest bone are laughing at me. I know the line of your jaw, and I know the tell-tale clench, and the way you look out from under your eyebrows.

It’s gurgling up to my mother’s white trim, particles of dirt sticking to the paint, then slipping away as the water heaves. I watch as it soaks into the fabric of your chair’s cover, a line of gray inches up to your toes. You look down at it. Back up to me. Drop your feet into it, and clench your hands on your lap. The skin on your nose folds into a snarl.

There are eddies revolving in the corners of the closet. It’s up to my waist, sucking the air from my lungs out between my ribs, out through my pores. Your eyelashes are clumped now and you blow drops off your lips. 

I claw at the walls. 

I can’t see my feet through the grey now. Your mouth and nose are submerged, eyeline parallel to the waterline. Mocking. 

It creeps up above your head, and I sink under, suspended. You: pinned to the white chair, hands still clasped. Glass eyes watch me, blinking. I tear at the sky. No point. Surface has become ceiling. 

You smile like this isn’t the first time you’ve watched me drown. 

Hey, you. Yeah, you. I can see your heart aching from all the way over here.