You stand there naked, in all that ravaged glory. 

Old, wrinkled, sagging, faltering, mascara old and dangling, lips dried and thin, thighs draped like theatre swags over an empty and dark stage. 

Breasts laughing, wildly, at how far the beloved can fall, and still aware of quite how much they were longed-for, still are longed for….

The belly hangs, the slit of your dried, sour, unwanted sex, fogged over by white, sparse pubic hair, a tremble to the left hand. 

You smile and I know you are about to speak…. 

You smile and Hell Freezes over….

You smile and a deep, dark cavern into Hell opens…. 

You smile and say…. 

You, She smiles

And it is all I can do not to retch, to vomit, to hurl, to turn away, to run, to scream, to curl up and die, to beg to be put down like a cur, cowering in horror in the corner.

Oh Mummy. 

You ask me to touch you, want me to bathe you, my insides heave. 

My throat constricts, the hairs on my neck rise, and travel down my arms, my spine. I begin to sweat. Water comes flooding into my mouth. 

You ask me to wash your hair and I am lost. I have drowned in Hell. The thought of touching your hair, wet tendrils of your hair, like gigantic spiders legs wrapped around my fingers. I am lost, I am retching, I cannot breathe, I want to die. I am lost in Hell. I don’t want to be found. Leave me there. 

I can only breathe by sobbing. I am panicked, horrified, disgusted. 

As much by you as, I now realise, by myself. I am you, re-incarnated. 

I hold your shame, your trauma, your hatred. It has all been poured into me: My mouth held open, my chin wrenched up, my head pulled back by my long hair as you vomited your own shame, hatred, abandonment, betrayal, loss and loathing into and onto me. 

I pull my hair free from your gnarled arthritic old claw-like hands, I lower my head and I turn to you and I spit it all out on the floor in front of you. 

It is not mine. It is not me. I am another, I am not yours to hate, to loathe, to scratch and hurt. 

I can walk away. I can. You cannot. You can sit on the edge of the cold, white bath hoping for a blessing, a baptism of forgiveness. 

Sit there forever. 

It will not come from me.