Lunch Lost in Time

Folded tight, cracked thin with age,

the paper bites where my fingers graze.

Grease stains smear like old regrets,

ketchup blots like small fires snuffed too soon.

That afternoon, lost now,

a sandwich bought in a rush—

voices overlapping the hum of the street,

a forgotten hour folded into fabric.

This scrap, brittle and soft,

smells faintly of diner grease and cheap coffee,

a time when hunger was the only truth,

and bills came without silence or shame.

I hold it longer than I should,

a ghost between the stitches of a jacket

I’ll send away,

but keep this memory’s weight pressed deep.