A Sovereign’s Skin
It takes you barely thirty minutes
to decide you want a shower
a quick cleanse before facing the day.
The water comes alive with a gentle hiss,
warm as memory.
You test it with your palm,
then turn the knob again,
letting it wash over you
head first
like surrender.
The purple soap, freshly unwrapped,
perches on the ledge
like a dainty promise.
You reach for it,
ready to lather away the night’s residue
when you feel it.
A sting.
First across your back,
then curling around the side of your left thigh.
You freeze.
Turn off the water.
The sudden silence in the bathroom grows thick
heavy
like a secret breathing too close.
You inspect your nails,
wondering if they’ve grown long enough
to scratch or tear flesh in your sleep,
or in some half-waking trance.
They have not.
You cut them low.
Filed away even the idea of claws.
In the mirror’s fog,
the marks reveal themselves
thin red lines, deliberate and cruel,
like a cat’s nails dragged slow across skin.
One on your back,
deep enough to whisper of blood.
The one on your thigh stops shy of breaking through
a warning more than a wound.
You do not own a cat here.
You do not keep one here.
Your spirit vexes
knowing an intruder
has tried to usurp a taken territory.
A witch has clawed on human flesh.
is a crime against sovereignty.
“You do not know the bodies that are taboo to you?”
you say, your voice low but carrying.
“You do not know
that I am not one whose skin you can break?”
Someone in the next room stirs.
“Who are you talking to?”
“No one you should know,” you answer.
“But they know themselves.”
And somewhere behind the walls
between the tiles,
beneath the hum of the pipes
something slithers away,
quiet and shamed,
called back
through gates of judgment.
Igali Conquer (a) August, 2025
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