blue bath towel

in the death box, i always used
the same towel to dry my body.
steam on the bathroom mirror.
i never wiped it off
instead thrived in the blur-pastel portrait
it left of me. it is not possible 
to find yourself. or, at least, i never was
very good at it. i went to the city 
of hungry souls. walked down 
avenue of the americas like i was 
not just a girl in a little blue towel
from target.  
upstairs the neighbor made
his horror mash. shoes throw
at the floor. my blood grew windows.
from them i could see all of my lives.
each of them on fire. i called home
only one holidays. i would say,
"i am so big." meanwhile i pinched
grains of salt. let them dissolve on my tongue.
the towel hung on the back 
of the bathroom door. often grew wings.
once, i had to catch it as if tried
to escape out to front door.
it is an emergency when you notice
even all the objects trying to leave you.
i begged the towel,
"please, you can be so warm."
it was true, though mostly
i left her mildew ridden & damp. 
sometimes, the day after i did the wash,
i would find her breathing.
i fed her thimbles of diet coke
& sometimes a jolly rancher or two. 
the not-sugar & the sugar. i like to think
maybe we were either side
of a buried stone. i still remember one night
when i laid in bed for hours 
wrapped like a fresh corpse in the towel.
i was trying to think my way out
of a night. find the pastel world 
where there was nothing more 
than stories about faces.