Before

My mother called about the surgery.

I said okay. I said I love you.

I hung up and went to clean like it was sorcery,

like bleach could work backward, undo

what's coming. The bottle and the brush

and my hands in the water, the rush

of chemical, sharp—

trying to disinfect time itself.

My knuckles burned. The grout darkened.

The tiles reflected light in a way that sharpened

everything, made it hospital-bright,

that sterile surface where nothing stays right

for long, where nothing stays clean.

I was scrubbing like if I could make this

small space pure enough, something larger

would also be fixed. Like bleach could hammer

away at the future, could make my mother's body

a thing I had some say in. Somebody

had to be able to stop this.

The smell sat in my lungs.

Chemical and final. Still, somewhere else,

time was moving toward what I couldn't repel—

the thing I couldn't clean away.

My hands looked bleached by the end of the day.

And still, nothing was ready.