I want it too hot and filled with tea

i want it too hot and filled with tea, little gardens floating in the bubbly water, smells of lavender and rose oil and spells and steam and the stories of ghosts and the language of stars, with plum-colored-smelling soap, so strong and bright it’s the only thing that holds your mind and no flashes, no thoughts, everyone you’ve ever known is gone and doesn’t exist and you never knew them and you don’t even know yourself and you don’t exist, you are like the steam rising up like a phantom’s breath, and it looks like a hug and a release, and you want to be lost in the fog forever only knowing the touch of bubbles and sweet spices and the droning sound of a million droplets of water thundering all at once, wondering if it is hot enough I dip a toe in and it comes back rosy and steaming and perfect, and the water is rising and my thoughts are drowning, so I throw my sweater and panties haphazardly on the floor and I will probably forget them there and they will become cold and soaked and I will be shivering and covered in goosebumps, picking up the pebbles of my responsibility and facing the end of a daydream, but that moment is so very far from now, which is only buffalo thunder and bath salts and the smell of mint and the candles you just lit, dipping your fingers in the hot, red wax and turning them into cool, red shells of your imprints, as tiny and perfect as the little bowls in your doll house, the one with the wallpapered rooms and the miniature tea set with pinprick-sized spoons and cakes like ladybugs, the doll house you loved so very much, until you came home and all of your things had been sold, your parakeets and your books and your video games and even your favorite chair, and you you traded your queen-sized bed for a person-shaped patch of carpet, but no!, that is a world very far from here and long ago, this world is only sage smudging and pearls of sweat rising on your skin and turquoise-colored water and clouded mirrors, but who will save the princess if I can’t play my video games and who will let the birds out of their cage to fly around the room even though the parents say no, no no!, memories like these fill me up like a sea, so i shake them off as i shake my hair out of its bun and it spills over my shoulders, and then I slowly lower myself in, an inch at a time, until all is submerged but my head, and there are strands of hair sitting on top of the water like octopus tentacles, and suddenly you are thrust under the currents and you can hear the low moaning of whales in the velvety water, and you are a whale and your hair is like shimmering light or seaweed spun by seals, and the whales call you and you answer, and everything is bubbles and the muted thundering of a million horses hooves, and your lungs ache but you only want to be under forever, a watery prune at the bottom of the ocean, because you’ve forgotten about the clothes on the floor and the soap scum and mold on the sink and the paint peeling on the bathroom door and the dirty, vomit-stained hallways that lead to doors and more rooms and streets and sidewalks and more houses and people and feelings and heartbreak and broken dreams and birds in cages and unsaved princesses and the moist feeling of pain between your legs when everything is being taken from you and parents with eye-less faces and pills gurgling in your stomach, just ocean, just here, just now, just the bobbing waves and the spirits dancing like playful lights under the surface of the waves, but your breath is out and you come up gasping and red-faced, and remember that you aren’t a whale, you are a little girl who needs so many things, like food and comfort and love, and stitches and staples and surgeries and antidotes and lotions and creams and powders and pills and vitamins and rubberbands and glue and nails and crutches and pins, all of the time, to keep your body and mind from breaking.  It is all so fragile and the candle’s gone out, and there isn’t thunder loud enough, and all of the honey tea and weed and cigarettes and strong coffee and cats and sleep in the world won’t cure the sickness.  The sea inside of you spills out of your eyes and into the tub like a black poison that consumes you.