Before I Learned to Lie

Written by Christine Wang from California, USA

I want to go back to the bathtub 

from when I was seven and honest, 

when the water was always too hot 

and I said so, loudly, 

before I learned that discomfort 

could be swallowed like bitter medicine.

Back then my skin was rough 

as sandpaper from summer sun 

and scraped knees, and I wore 

that texture like a badge—

proof that I had touched the world 

and let it poke me back.

The bathtub held my small body 

like a porcelain confession booth 

where I told my rubber duck 

every secret I owned: 

how I stole three cookies, 

how I hated my sister's laugh, 

how I ripped all the carefully groomed

flowers from the garden, and how 

that was why I was muddy-ing up the tub.

There was no shame in wanting 

what I wanted then, no careful 

calculation of what was 

proper or seemly or expected. 

My mother would scrub behind my ears 

and I would protest the rough washcloth, 

the soap that stung my eyes, 

the way she yanked the tangles from my hair 

without apology.

I had not yet learned 

that complaint was impolite, 

that good children suffer 

beautifully and in silence.

The drain would swallow 

the dirty water and I'd watch 

my small crimes disappear—

the playground dirt, the grass stains, 

the evidence of a day spent

entirely present in my body, 

entirely honest about 

what hurt and what felt good.

I want to find that bathtub again,

to sit in water hot enough

to turn my skin the color of embarrassment,

and remember what it felt like 

to trust that someone would always come 

to lift me out, wrap me in a towel rough enough 

to remind me I was real, and still new enough 

to be forgiven for everything.