sensory processing disorder

(after Bao Phi)

4 year old me drops her bread on the floor,

and immediately runs it under cold water–

as water is a cleansing thing,

and the bread is a filthy thing now.

i go to bite my sopping

lunch, disgusted by her

newfound texture,

but who am i to

discard a renewed offering,

the body of christ?

my disgust became an omen

for my future–

washing away filth,

lamenting at the taste

of purity.

sterility alters the feeling,

washing away what makes

us tingle, burn, ache for more;

contaminated feels better,

the ooze of it, the thickness

of wrongdoing, a necessary

sloppiness.

in the pre-k bathroom,

little girls in borderless stalls,

checking one another for cleanliness,

how innocent the lack of boundaries,

how we knew what disgust looked like

on one another’s bodies,

but had no idea girls shouldn’t look

at each other like that.

in first grade, i found out that tight jeans

feel better on hard plastic chairs when you

sit a certain way;

that pillows weren’t just for sleeping, water spouts weren’t

just for filling a bathtub.

i also learned that the texture of bubblebath

on my tongue is catharsis.

my body found pleasure and shame

in the same places,

the same lessons.

with no one to separate the two.