holy water of self-love
My great grandmother’s green bathtub was small and cozy. A bar of soap too big for my hands fragranced the air like incense. I remember the arch of my great grandmother’s back as she’d bend over the side of the tub. She’d take my feet in her hands, one and then the other, and gently wash them, being careful to clean with soap between each tiny toe. She rinsed them off with holy water straight from the faucet. Now, 20 years later, I lay here, body suspended in my own bathtub-sized piece of soft, salty water, and I remember being a child in my great grandmother’s bathtub. Knees, breasts, and neck peeking above the water, I remember how I trusted her. I didn’t know that the future would soon run dry of this sort of trust—the kind that isn’t afraid of how other people might see your body. Or worse, how you yourself might see it. I sit up, reach for the spearmint soap, and try to wash my own feet—one foot and then the other, careful to wash between each toe. As I obse
