Ask me about love, and I’ll tell you about the bathroom floor

You ask me about love, and I’ll tell you about the bathroom floor. I'll tell you how we crammed four girls into the bathtub barely meant for one person, standing room only, sitting half on top of each other, giggling over a bottle of cheap wine. The music pounds outside but the beat is muted in here, drowned out by the sound of our shared laughter, stumbling over punch lines and unknowingly making a memory that will keep me warm for a lifetime. Our legs stick over the edge of the tub, feet dangling and kicking haphazardly, ignoring the constant knocks on the door. How can anyone know we’re here? It’s become our safe space. Occupied! One of us finally shouts back before the rest of us dissolve into laughter. Love and girlhood, all squeezed into one bathtub.

You ask me about love, and I’ll tell you about the bathroom floor. I’ll tell you about the love that doesn't quite reach my own conscious, imprints of the tiled floor etched into my knees as I keel over the toilet bowl. Fingers down my throat like I’m looking for something, digging for some shred of self-respect only to be met with a hatred blossoming out of my teenage years. Love that’s been regurgitated and flushed down the drain. Love that has yet to be learned to give back to myself. It’s a temporary relief and an ironic one at that. Love that only flows back into my bloodstream when my stomach is hollow and the remnants of the last thing I ate are cleansed from my system. An erasure of some sort. I think it’s baptismal, a renewal of vows. But, no. It’s just another reminder that love lives in an excavated cavern, echoing off my ribs and the spaces where a hot meal used to settle. 

You ask me about love, and I’ll tell you about the bathroom floor. I’ll l tell you about how I memorized the scratches at the bottom of the door from all the times I lay curled up on the ground, crying over someone who wasn’t mine anymore. I’ll tell you how I pushed my cheek into the freezing linoleum as a reprieve for the hot tears that stained my face. I’ll tell you how I ignored the knocking on the door, muffled concerned voices all muted by the sound of my heart shattering into a million pieces, scattering all across the room. Sometimes when I sweep the floors, I still scoop up these pieces from corners and crevices of the bathroom, collateral damage from years ago. I can tell you where my body fits perfectly in between the toilet and the wall, but only when my knees are curled up and tucked tight under my chin. My back presses firmly against the wall when I wrap my arms around my legs, and if I close my eyes and think hard enough, it almost feels like a hug. 

You ask me about love, and I’ll tell you about the bathroom floor. I’ll tell you about the space that drowns out my thoughts like no other, a place that will just let me be. My bed will hug and comfort me, whisper soothing sweet nothings into my ear, and lull me to sleep, a false sense of stability. But the mattress under me is shaky, unpredictable in the way it shifts under my weight. The bathroom floor, though. The bathroom floor grounds me like nothing before. It will just let me sit and think, and not in a panicked, rampant stream of chaos. Something about my palms on the cold, hard surface of the bathroom floor offers me solace, allowing each thought to march in and out of my head like a soldier reporting for duty. Always on time, and gone when it needs to be. 

You ask me about love, and I’ll tell you about the bathroom floor. I’ll tell you about the way I skirt across the tile as I brush my teeth, bare feet dancing out of rhythm, and the way he pauses and smiles at me completely melts away the frigidity of the ground under my toes. It’s not quite love, yet, but the feeling that courses through my veins damn near feels like it. He joins me, a bit more coordinated, two fools laughing through our toothpaste swaying and twirling around with each other with no witnesses but the bathroom floor. It’s our kept secret, the best part of the night. 

You ask me about love, and I’ll tell you about the bathroom floor. I’ll tell you about the morning afters, both in the company of my friends and alone, sitting together on the ground, laughing through the pain of our headaches and rolling stomachs because the memories made the night before were worth the punishment of today. I’ll tell you about the bathroom floor that healed a heart it didn’t break, not by offering comforting advice or words of wisdom, but just by being a place where I can let my emotions wring me dry without any judgment. I’ll tell you about the quietest place in my home, a place where the most intimate memories are made, where secrets are kept, and a treasure trove of laughter from everyone special in my life. I’ll tell you about the place that has seen me at my best and at my worst, at my never-ending tears and my solo dance parties. 

Ask me about love, and I’ll tell you about the bathroom floor.