I melted in the shower once. It was a surprisingly quick process. First my hair slid out, then my eyelashes and ears slumped down to my neck, my shoulders, my knees. The last things to go were my teeth and fingernails, but it wasn’t long before they’d dissolved in the steam with the rest of me. Before I knew it, I was gone, careening through the pipes. I won’t tell you about the sewers, but the filtration process afterward was wonderful. All my rocks and hard bits settled to the bottom and I felt lighter than I have for a very long time. Eventually even my old regular dirt and silt were separated from me and I was my pure self, clean. I know I wasn’t, I know I was water, but I felt like air must feel (but what a silly thing for water to say, really, and I hope no air ever reads this because I’m positive it would be embarrassing). I was so light and so pure you wouldn’t have recognized me, even if I hadn’t melted into a little puddle.

After my filtration, I sped through the pipes again. I was pushed for miles (probably, it’s hard to care about distance when you’re something as unceasing as water). I somehow made it to your house, your pipes, your tap. You were thirsty and you drank me up, with ice. You had never been filtered like me so there was a little dirt and a couple of rocks, but that was OK, I was bound to make it to a person eventually and I was glad it was someone reasonably honest and clean like you. I glided past your tongue and into your stomach. Your bloodstream, your heart. I realized I’d been shrinking—water molecules can’t stay grouped together forever—and now I was just a little drop, even though I’d been an entire person taking a shower just a day or week or month before (time is hard for water, too).

I’m not sure how long I stayed inside you as my little droplet self, getting to know your every nook and cranny, nourishing you and keeping your cells hydrated, but eventually there was a hot day and I was pushed out through your skin to your forehead, just above your eyebrow, where I glistened for a moment before you wiped me away and flicked me to the ground and that was that. I wasn’t sad or bitter because by then I was really, truly water and water doesn’t feel; it just is.

Now that I’m a person again I do have to confess I like to reminisce about that time once in a while. About how you never knew I was there inside of you, helping you stay alive and healthy. About how you were so warm and how I could know so much about you, know everything about your movement and shape, without ever knowing your name. Sometimes I wonder how you are, and if you’ve ever had the experience of melting or shrinking to live inside of somebody else. I hope you have, or that you do someday. Water may not feel, but people do, and you were the warmest, safest place I’ve ever lived.