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FOUR WAY REVIEW

Annesha Mitha is a Fiction Zell Fellow at the Helen Zell Writers’ Program. Her work appears or is forthcoming in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, American Short Fiction, The Offing, Catapult, and more. She has received fellowships from Kundiman and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and currently lives in Ypsilanti, MI with a hound named Flower.

SHOWERHEAD by Annesha Mitha

Thursday, 15 April 2021 by Annesha Mitha

Is there a parallel universe where 
My parent’s showerhead wasn’t
Detachable? That parallel girl
Is probably getting a lot done
Today. It would have been
Easy to avoid the knowledge
That pleasure isn’t something 
To be felt, but followed, a hand
Grappling walls that have been scratched
By other hands. When I’m bored,
I damage myself with pleasure. But 
I still wonder if the circle of my ache
Is smaller than everyone else’s. 
People speak about ecstasy with
So much trust in the word. I 
Feel nothing, then something, 
Then pride. I wouldn’t call it
Ecstasy. I tell someone I don’t love: 
It feels like an anchor dragged up
From the deep. He replies: it feels
Like a really good sneeze. 
Seeking pleasure, I give myself
A double chin. I give myself a burning
Ember. I give myself. I only
Come when I am alone or 
With a person who falls
On my skin like fine mesh, so
That I feel captured, but not bound. 
Years ago, behind a fern splattered curtain,
Water opened a door.

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  • Published in Issue 20
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