i'll never be a poet

ihana

ihana wondered if the flies in the shower were spies for the government. the thought occured to her one day as she held her glassy shower head over her crown of sopping wet curls now limp and flat against her head and noticed the little insects grafted onto the tile walls and sewn onto her hanging towel, immobile little things dotting the perimeter of her steamy enclosure. ihana realised she had never seen these flies beyond her bathroom before- perhaps they were native to this private chamber, subtly yet brazenly toeing the waterfall cascading from her shower head, dauntless surveillance cameras on six legs. ihana aims her shower head at the shower-flies and blasts them with a jet of hot liquid, but they always zip in and out between each streamline water-pillar, determined deftly death dodgers. ihana frowns. she turns away and drizzles shampoo into her scalp and begins kneading her hair, the gears in her brain turning stimulated by her head-massage. she can feel the prickly gaze of the spy-flies watching her bare body, poised in a sinuous curve as her chest juts out with raised elbows to her hair, no fault of hers. she crouched her head and hunches her shoulders so her chest recedes back into her heart, but now her spine pops out and is vulnerable to their gaze. they could very well measure the degree of the curve in her spine this way. the government shouldn't have this data. ihana spins around fast, hoping whatever soapy droplets of water shaken off her body managed to pelt down on a few of the flies, and rinses the suds out of her hair with her nails in deep intrusive scratches. a few flies drunkenly float out of her hair. ihana grits her teeth at the knowledge of the audacity they had to bury themselves there. where else could they possibly be? ihana does not want to know, she just wants all the flies to stop their invasion of her privacy.