I’ve never felt
More luxurious
Than when
I was on a newly
Prescribed drug
With a total body high,
Coming down from mania,
Still exuberant,
But in a private space,
In my bathroom
In the ward,
In a bathtub
That does not fill up.
So I put on the shower
And I let the water hit my skin
And I took bite after bite
Of crisp and juicy apple slices.
I was at the mental hospital
Marilyn Monroe stayed in.
I imagined her here in the same bath
Also feeling luxurious and all sorts
Of ****** up like me.

bath salts
single malt
a mouth of candles crown
                        the tub
                  the body
                     from spilling out
             into the cold surround

the brimming sill
    capsize the moat
         foam disgorges in a luppy spawn...

doff your gown
        evacuate
           your own company ?
pour sacredly
to drown
                  
                                        ­                 - 'Chin-chin'

My muse is fickle at times,
Nagging me when I'm busy
Doing the real world,
Taking a bubble bath when I need her most...

I used to wish I had a reason to feel so sad.
Maybe a death in the family or a traumatic injury, morbid as it sounds.
A reason to feel scared, and lost, and all at once a child begging for someone else to takeover for a while.
Crying in the bath is such a cliche but when you're underwater no one can ask what's wrong and be disappointed by the answer.
I don’t have a good enough reason to be sad, I’m only 23 and have an entire life to live but I feel like this is gonna be it, and every week is another long week and every day drags like it will never end.
I feel like I should talk to someone but I’m not sad enough, or I’m not rich enough, or I’m not desperate enough.
People say life finds a way and that it will all sort itself out, but right now in this bath it’s just me and my fears so life can wait a while.

Warming Her Pearls
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Warming her pearls, her *******
gleam like constellations.
Her belly is a bit rotund ...
she might have stepped out of a Rubens.

Published by Erosha, The Eclectic Muse, Muse Apprentice Guild, Nisqually Delta Review, Erbacce, Poetry Life & Times and Brief Poems. Keywords/Tags: warming, pearls, bath, *******, constellations, belly, rotund, Rubens, mrbsex, body, art, painting, ******, erotica, ****, ******, naked, flesh

the effulgent sun
dipping everyday in the
river of darkness.
what lose, burning him as fire?
what blame, he bathing away?