Tarmac Residue

Left the bus, the exhaust haze

still warm on my face.

And then the drag.

That small, persistent resistance

under my sole.

It wasn't a rock, or a twig.

Just a flat, gray thing,

a fossilized chew,

black with city dust,

plastered to the worn tread

of my sneaker.

I tried to scrape it on the curb,

a small, desperate grind.

It only spread, a thin film

of somebody else's forgotten moment,

now irrevocably mine.

It picked up a pebble.

Then a thread.

Then a tiny, curled leaf-skeleton.

Everything I stepped on

became part of it,

a miniature world

built on an old mistake.

I walked home with it,

a silent passenger,

the irritation a low hum

against the pavement.

Some things you just carry,

whether you want to or not.