🔥The Shower

Nothing feels better than getting clean.

Not the kind of clean that scrubs away sin — I don't believe in that kind of dirty.

The kind of clean that reminds you that your body is yours. That water doesn't ask permission. That steam doesn't judge.

I step in.

The heat hits my shoulders first — a slow surrender. My neck drops forward. My breath deepens.

Water runs down the back of my head, past my ears, over the curve of my spine, to the small of my back where it pools for just a second before remembering it has somewhere to go.

My hands slide into my hair. Suds between my fingers. I lather like I'm waking up each strand — like my scalp has been waiting all day for this touch.

I arch my back without thinking. The water follows the arch. Down my ribs. Over my hips. Between my thighs where I don't rush.

Soap on my skin is a language only my body knows how to speak. My palms know where to linger. My fingers know the paths that make me sigh.

And yet —

The only thing that would make this better

is if your hands were the ones sliding up my body.

If you were standing behind me,

watching me shower —

wet, naked, nothing to hide

except my blushing cheeks from the way you make me feel.

Your palms on my hips.

Your chest against my back.

Your breath on my neck where the water hasn't reached yet.

I wouldn't turn around.

I'd just lean back.

Let you hold me while the water does what water does —

falls, flows, forgives nothing, asks for nothing.

And maybe your hands would slide lower.

Maybe mine would cover yours.

Maybe we'd just stand there —

two bodies under water,

clean in a way that has nothing to do with soap.

But even if you never step into this shower —

even if it's just me, my hands, my heat, my steam —

I am still here.

Still arching.

Still washing myself clean of anyone who made me feel like wanting was wrong.

The water doesn't care who watches.

Neither do I.