He spends long hours in a steam bath scrubbing clean each square inch of the skin and squeaky cleaning each nook of the digits as if attempting to froth away the neurochemicals of inheritance.. trying to wash away stubborn memories.
Memories of a mother whose dendrons came alive in her eyes as scarlet of branched veins when the tentacles of paranoia gripped her. If a scientist were to put electrodes in her brain he could measure the degree of her psychosis, the tautness of nerves that distorted her face, the crackle of tension at the synapses when she shrieked, the gushing of blood to her brain when she grew violent and the dose of sedative needed to reduce the  frequency of thoughts. Acridity that burnt her youth and his childhood never got diluted.
Some sparks from her neurons passed  the placental barrier, the redness brimming at the corner of his eyes in the mirror threatens to spill over too.

howling moon…
threadbare
the fabric of night

Yesha Shah