The Colours at the End of the Rainbow

Heat escapes the shower cubicle, like a repulsed ghost retreating back into the darkness

Screech tap, off

Pulling the towel down from above my head, I fling it in one assured and vigilant sweep around me like a cloak, a vital organ that I’ve thus far been perishing without

Soapy water droplets sting my eyes and leave an unwelcome bitterness in my mouth

Then, wet footsteps

A cynical tap, tap, tap

Echoing out of this tired shower block

I’m alone

With my thoughts

In my blue towel cloak

The last thing existing on this floating rock of disposable rules and aimless hatred that bears the capacity to comfort me

Alone, as lifeless as a vegetable below a human tap, I am both existing and not

At the same time

/

From the corners of my lips I begin to salivate

Irresistible bubbles, filled with the aroma of salt-and-vinegar-coated hot chips, float up and burst all around me

It’s enough to fracture my fixated gaze upon the distorted reflection looking back at me through the chipped shower head

Even if only for a second

With ravenous eyes, I leave the cubicle and make my way to the café

I don’t think, I just let my nose find them

And I’m standing here, with indigo skin, almost frozen

Surviving only from the heat radiating off the bain-marie

Eyes lock onto the murdered root vegetable

Don’t do it

You don’t need it

You’ll hate yourself afterwards for it

An hour of this before I agree with myself to purchase a small bag

Though once I did, my hand remained stagnant in place, hovering above

Iron-hot rods leaving condensation on the underside of my purpling palm

Trying with all their might to warm me up

/

Eventually, the heat began to loosen the scabs lacing my wrists

Making them malleable

Watch as they redden, first to a blush pink, and then to hellish crimson

Stop it

Stop it

Stop

It

Slowly

Cautiously

I devour each hot chip

Savouring each granule of salt

Pushing the greasy vinegar around the roof of my mouth

A lacquer of forbidden flavour

Sin

Looking to the bottom of the bag, half hoping to find one last bite and half glad that my self-inflicted torture had finally come to its end,

Chip salt had settled in a white line

Licking my finger, I tamped it down, picking up a mound of the little savoury stars

My red cuffs cried in glorious agony against my blanket of indigo with each calculated press of the powdery stuff into them

Out spilt a violet sap

How peculiar, I thought

I let it pour

Of course, I thought, and began to disappear

Purest childhood joys of hot chips

Won’t save me

If I, myself, don’t want to be