The cold plastic it’s always there

The cold plastic, it’s always there,

patient, under my bare

heel. A small, white lie,

until the red numbers fly

into being, then settle,

that flat line, a metal

judgment, quiet but sharp.

It strikes a frantic harp

inside my chest, a note

I cannot un-quote.

Two blinks. Then that.

Like some fat,

ugly truth, it just sits.

My breath, it quits.

And I stand there, silly,

in the bathroom, chilly,

trying to make it blur,

a ghost, a silent stir.

But it’s solid. It’s real.

This impossible feel

of something so small,

making me want to crawl

back into bed, and hide.

It’s just a number, inside,

I tell myself, a trick.

But the image, it will stick.