#1 (LET YOUR SKIN BE MY HIDING PLACE)

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Who are you?


All day long I've been munching on this giddy feeling, making bubbles behind my eyes and between my teeth, because I knew tonight it would start. A memoir.
While I scratch my first words, I look in the bathtub. It fills up with blue water, real blue, although the bathtub is white and I didn't put anything in the water to make it blue. Just my foot. A flower of a foot. Very well-behaved and heroic, lady-like despite its size. Always dreaming about becoming a prima ballerina, but there you have it now, just a foot in a bathtub, always mistreated and forgotten when sloppy caresses are given away. I am not very much of a feet lover.
I dive in the bathtub. It's so low I feel I'm being buried underwater. No-one must know I took a bath. The water is no longer blue. Now it's gray and pink, and I have never seen a water that changes its mind so quickly and without chemical help.
As I go down I search for words amongst the colours. Words that I have lost or that have run away from me. Someone is behind the curtain and I hold my breath, letting one of the missing words escape again.
I open my eyes as I stick my head out. The water is yellow and green now. My body is red. Behind the curtain still lurks the invader. Is it the same person? Is it just one? The one who has been there for hours sharpening her nails, waiting for me. When she began I was still young. The colours are melting back into blue. Blue... blue... blue... with a few strands of black.