Spiders

I have a spider in my shower.

I have taken a shower in there three times despite this knowledge and it haunts me between each drop of water, each brush against the wall or showerhead. I do not know where it lurks. I saw it once and since then it has maintained a steady hidden location, to which my eyes only half-heartedly search.

It matches how I feel in this moment, a deep lurking in my gut that has impregnated the last few days with broiling anxiety and the inner pit I thought had long since disappeared. But no, the pit was back, and like the spider, it hides in the crevices of my brain, controlling and confusing my emotions and thoughts until it is a bumble of half-baked wishes of comfort that won't come.

Animal-like instincts rival my rational brain with the result being an utterly useless, silent battle- none fought more still or quietly while the blood-shed drenches every inch of my body that I cannot wash off, cannot scrub clean. I ache from a war fought mentally. I drown in my attempts to float and bring nothing and no one down around me. But the lashes bleed, and there are sharks in the water. Circling. Ever circling.

Would I even know water without sharks in it, hungry for my blood?

I step out of the shower and begin to dry off. I have successfully evaded this clever spider again. My pride is muted when I spot the glistening of a single line of web on the ceiling and wonder if it now watches me instead. Content to revel in my anxiety knowing it is entirely out of harms reach. Unable to be washed away.