This morning, I took a shower to let the hot boiling water melt off any traces of your fingertips on my skin. I fold my palms into a rosary praying to God that my body forgets what your hands feel like on my own, found myself reciting bible verses like a broken cry for help.

One day, I asked my mom what it would be like to take off skin, hang it up away into the closet, and find something akin to plastic wrap to fit into. She looked at me, a kind of sadness in her eyes I had never seen before, and said that sometimes it was the only way to find something we have lost in ourselves a very long time ago.

So, that’s what I did — I shed every expanse, every calculated surface of the old scarred skin and threw it into the closet to keep the skeletons from getting cold. I peeled layers down, shed what I thought was dead scales just weighing me down, and left myself skinned and rubbed raw to the bone.

Then, I tried looking for pieces of myself that I’ve lost along the way, the ones you decided to take without my permission. I don’t know how long they’ve been missing exactly but the exit wounds you left cut too deep for a band-aid solution so I patched them up with whatever temporary thing I could find.

Sometimes, I found solace in the arms of strangers I never learned the names of and other times, I found them as temporary euphoria in the bottom of bottles — the kind that made my rock bottom didn’t feel like bottoming out — on a late Friday night.

They were warm, provided the comfort I used to think I found in you and it was like a habit my body never learned how to get rid of.

I guess old habits do die hard.

And last night, before I turned my lamp off to go to bed, I began to notice every piece you took with you — they were the pieces I never really thought I needed until now. Instead, I’m now left with the ghost of your fingertips playing a lullaby I no longer knew the words to.

No matter how much I tried to scratch you out, you kept playing like a broken record beneath every surface, every layer of skin I try to mold myself into.

It’s a new day now and I’m still here stuck in the same spot with the memories of you keeping my feet glued to the ground.

I’m still looking for a way out, searching for a way to shed my skin so boldly they begin to learn the process of starting over and over. I’ve kept my eyes peeled long enough, crossed out enough numbers on the calendar I’ve begun to lose count.

But, tomorrow could be different. It’s what keeps me going.