The Forgotten Receipt

Folded tight, stiff as guilt,

a diner’s ghost pressed in pocket seams.

Coffee ring, ketchup smudge—time’s fingerprints.

I hold ’83 like a brittle photograph,

receipt crumpled with last night’s crumbs,

wearing someone else’s old hunger.

A bill for fries, a shake, a laugh

frozen beneath thrifted wool—

forgotten paper breathing beneath my fingers.

This coat smells of strangers,

a ghost of grease and cheap mustard

seeping through decades of silence.