Sterile Waiting

The air tastes of bleach and old coffee,

stale plastic chairs lined up like witnesses.

Underneath, a bitter thread of something else—

metal and medicine that cling tight.

A cough sharpens the silence,

distant footsteps echo hollow,

and I wear the scent like a second skin,

a ghost stitched into the waiting room.

The smell curls in corners,

twisting through my clothes,

carrying stories no one tells aloud,

of too many hours spent in limbo,

of pain folded neat and masked.

I want to scrub it off,

but it’s already inside me,

a faint ache between the ribs,

the scent of fear waiting to leave.