'The shower after' by Elisa Dominique Rivera

My viciously exfoliated skin was fluorescent pink, which reminded me of that undercooked chicken burger I ate to impress you on our first date. In clumps, my hair gathered at the shower drain, its density threatening to clog the whirring whirlpool of red water flowing from me. My eyes won’t close from the swelling, the momentum of impact I could still feel ringing in my head. My body under that running shower was a dark bruised matter, a husk of silent nothing, because you said my “No” sounded like a yes.