Post Part Um?

By Winter Wright

The bathroom door becomes a sanctum

a line of demarcation

between self and image.

Inside, we find self

squeezing out dichotomy

allowing it to rain

on soil colored cheeks

and image waiting to be seen.

Worthiness is a seed

we water with our tears.

We visit its garden daily.

Seeing if anything has sprouted

since we last poured.

Self creates a wasteland of the titles she’s been given

Taking off her armor

Sizing up the opponent her mind has become

Earnestly fighting to defeat it’s terror.

Its made weeping wall of the mirror

Self can be found, nose pressed to its promise

Fogging up its reflection with breath

Passing notes through the cracks

Trying to get through to the woman

That is trapped inside

Image accepts the affirmations

Although she’s always known who she was:

Mother, who has not yet learned to cradle herself

Woman, who is still searching for the meaning

Lover, who scurries at the sight of anything beaming

We both

transmit and relinquish

our power in this bathroom

water running

to muffle the transaction

We’ve seen each other

in day dreams and reality.

We are that we are

a wonder,

the sigh of relief from your daughters’ lungs,

the last tear to fall from their eyes.

We keep what must be kept.

Self and image included.

We fellowship in the bathroom

engaged until married

seeking oneness

watering worth

sitting in the silence of promise.

We put ourselves back together,

and brace for the world that waits

outside this bathroom door

dependent on our union.

We are that we are to be all we must be.