Purple Clip

Under the seat, there it lay,

a plastic flash, bright purple gleam.

Just like the one I took that day,

a foolish, adolescent dream.

The drugstore aisles, fluorescent hum,

my heart a frantic, stupid drum.

To prove I could, to feel less numb,

to swipe something so dumb.

It bent a little, where it sat,

a cheap spring, barely holding on.

I picked it up, then let it drop, just like that.

The small crime, I thought, long gone.

But the dust on my mat,

and the plastic, cheap, and wrong,

it taught me something I forgot.

It just hangs on.