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*Summer 2009*


At age ten in my basement bathroom, I still needed to be reminded to clean myself. Already in ten years I had attracted layers of dirt, wearing sin like double skin, wrapped in the poison of the past, awaiting purging. But as my mom settled the metal loto in the drain dip of the sink with a rush of bubbly water rising to the brim, I knew this cleansing could not penetrate the permanency of scars. Dirt would grow back in clumps as scars taught them to, to make immorality seem washable.

My mom gripped the silver half moon handle of the loto carrying it from sink to toilet and cold water that mimicked its container’s reflective curves spilled over edges. At one end was a spout extending from the base of purity to reach my raw folds, source of defecation, of shame, of intrusion. I sat ready, accepting duty, on the edge of my seat and my mind wondering how to begin, what she’ll think, how she’ll comfort me, how she’ll fight for me.

My mom mistakes my unwillingness to inherit and make routine this ritual outward, superfluous washing for inability. She leans the loto and the laser liquid stream hits at an angle making me numb, drowning the random assemblage of skin I haven’t yet learned to name, or look at, or touch.

From the top most point of my creases the stream travels an arc with a triumphant gleam of success. I am fit to be inspected by my family, my society, and my God.

I acknowledge the victory over perceptible sin but then let trauma surface from the core of anxiety through pores of now regenerated dirt so that my mom can perceive of the impurity even ritual cannot dissolve.