Photo by MIO ITO on Unsplash

Pale Blue Bathroom

I thought 41 would have an older face than this middle-sized woman hiding in the bathroom. This place where things depart. My sanctuary of grief. A place to store hair-ties and old brushes, worn deodorants and small bottles of lotions, soaps and creams. The smell of my family. I come here to cry. I come here to feel. “I am an American,” scream I, “and the bathroom is my right.” My woman’s place. My allotment of space by the lords of marriage. “Go there…