Swallowed Truth

The napkin sits,

a crumpled ghost of a thought,

where I almost wrote it down:

he's a leech, sis.

But the pen stopped short,

a dried-up track.

You smiled, a brittle thing,

and talked about his charm.

My throat burned,

a live wire humming,

the words a bitter pellet,

swallowed again, a secret

kept from you, for you,

or maybe just for me.

The silence after you left

is a colder lie.