It’s amazing how one sentence,
so insignificant,
can stick with you for years.

Ten years ago, my close friend told me
that when you shower, you should
wash yourself with soap first.

And now, ten years later,
here I am, having just gotten into the
stream of water, reaching for the soap.

I wonder, if a statement so trivial
has stayed with me, after all this time,
in the back of my brain, what else has?

Do I still hear every time he said he loved me
echoing through my mind’s crevices, shouting at me,
“He doesn’t anymore! Not anymore!”

What about every time someone called me stupid,
or said my shirt was hideous, or told me that
I couldn’t play because I was too good at watching?

Are those remarks still back there?
Gnawing at the ends of my brain,
telling me that I’m not good enough?

That the music I listen to isn’t hip enough?
That the movies I watch are dumb, and a
waste of my time?

I know that they are there in my subconscious
because every night I step into the shower,
I reach for the soap bar without even meaning to.