Apples to Ashes

It wasn’t hot enough. I’d turned the shower knob all the way to the right—as high as the temperature could go—but the water still wasn’t hot enough. My tender knees and elbows were inflamed from the heat and the steam choked my lungs; I felt like I was burning alive, but it wasn’t enough. My body quivered with pain but I forced it to stay beneath the scalding streams which trailed down my back, my arms, my legs, and onto my head and down my face where they mingled with the streams that had been there long before.

I felt I’d never be clean again, so I supposed the water would never be hot enough.