After the Shower

After the Shower

After the shower, the mirror is always honest. Steam loosens its grip slowly, like a reluctant confession, and my face appears in fragments—an eye first, then a cheek, then the whole tired map of me. Water beads on my shoulders and runs down in thin, obedient lines, carrying nothing with it but heat. I watch it go and feel foolish for expecting more.

The apartment is quiet except for the drip of the faucet I never quite close all the way. It sounds like a clock learning how to speak. I wrap myself in a towel that smells faintly of detergent and something older—fabric softener and time—and stand there longer than necessary, staring at my skin as if it might explain itself.

I think of the city outside, how it wakes up hungry. Sirens, buses, voices layered on top of one another, each asking for something. I think of the news I read that morning, the words I couldn’t shake: markets up, shelters full; profits soaring, wages flat. A story about a neighborhood renamed and priced out of itself. Another about a child who learned the taste of hunger before the alphabet. The water did not wash those words away.

When I was younger, I believed cleanliness was a kind of virtue. That if you scrubbed hard enough, long enough, the world would meet you halfway. My grandmother used to say, “You take a shower, you start again.” She said it with hope, like starting again was as simple as soap and steam. I want to believe her still.

The mirror fogs again when I breathe. I draw a line through it with my finger, a childish habit I never grew out of. The skin beneath is warm, alive, a boundary I both trust and mistrust. It holds me together, but it also announces me. It tells stories before I open my mouth. It has learned things without my permission.

I dry off slowly, feeling the ache in my shoulders, the quiet protest of my knees. The body remembers what the mind tries to edit. Somewhere, someone decided which bodies could rest and which must always be ready. Somewhere, someone turned hunger into a business plan. Somewhere, someone learned to call it efficiency.

In the kitchen, a single plate waits in the sink. I ate standing up, as usual, scrolling with one hand, chewing with the other. The food tasted like nothing and everything—salt, heat, a small relief. I think about plates that stay empty and the hands that keep them that way. I think about how pain has preferences, how it learns who to visit and who to spare.

Back in the bathroom, I pick up the bar of soap, worn thin and translucent at the edges. It slips easily in my hand, eager to be used up. There’s a lesson there, probably. Or maybe I’m just tired and everything feels like a metaphor when you’re tired.

I remember a conversation from years ago, a friend laughing too loudly, saying, “We’re all the same under the skin.” It was meant kindly, a peace offering, but it landed wrong. Under the skin is where the trouble lives. Under the skin is history and inheritance, fear passed down like eye color. Under the skin is where hunger learns to speak.

I turn off the bathroom light and leave the door open. The hallway catches the last of the steam, a ghost that doesn’t know where to go. I dress carefully, choosing clothes that won’t ask questions of my body. Fabric is another kind of armor. Some days it’s enough.

Outside, the world keeps its appointments. Somewhere, a deal is signed. Somewhere, a meal is skipped. Somewhere, someone learns to hate a body they’ve never touched. I think about how greed dresses itself up as necessity, how racism pretends to be logic, how both survive by convincing us they’re natural. Like gravity. Like weather.

After the shower, my skin cools and tightens, reminding me that it’s there, that I am here. I press my palm against my chest and feel the steady insistence of my heart. It doesn’t care about markets or borders. It only knows its job.

Before bed, I look in the mirror one last time. The steam is gone now. There is no fog, no softness. Just me, as I am, carrying what I carry. I don’t know how to wash the world clean. I don’t know how to separate myself from the systems that made me. But I know this: the water taught me nothing leaves without effort.

I turn away from the mirror and into the dark, skin intact, questions louder than ever, still believing—stubbornly—that starting again might be possible, even if it takes more than a shower.