2018 Academy of American Poets Prize

 

 

I try to train my hair not to be oily

so I wait a few days between each cleanse

 

but some days, like today

I treat myself to a shampoo 

and I play a song that romanticizes domestic abuse 

 

I think about the way showers wash off blood 

and that the last time I heard this song 

my father slipped in the shower

and his skin opened into scarlet rivers

 

today the shower doesn't wash away any blood

because verbal abuse doesn't break skin

 

so when I see the droplets sitting on my shoulders 

I think about how showers are poetic

the way the water deceives me

convincing me that the trauma will go down the drain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

with the clumps of my hair