The water blisters my skin until the mirror clouds with steam and I disappear inside it. I stand beneath the scalding heat scrubbing until my arms ache, until my nails bend backward, until my skin blooms red and angry, because somehow pain feels cleaner than remembering. I drag the rag across my thighs, my chest, the places that once felt holy to me, the places I used to live inside comfortably before his hands turned them into haunted ground. The soap slips from trembling fingers but I keep going again, again, again as if I can peel myself apart layer by layer until there is nothing left he ever touched. The water burns so hot it steals the air from my lungs, yet I stay there shivering, hoping heat can cauterize memory, hoping the drain will swallow every fingerprint, every flinch, every ghost of him. But trauma is cruel like that. It does not sit on the skin. It burrows beneath it. And no matter how hard I scrub, his absence still stains me. So I sink to the shower floor, knees against cold porcelain, body raw and stinging, crying for the girl I was before survival became something I had to wear instead of innocence. Still beneath the burning water, beneath the shaking, beneath the grief my heart continues beating like a quiet rebellion. Because somewhere inside this ruined feeling my body is still mine, still sacred, still deserving of tenderness even after being treated like it wasn't.