They Marked It

I found the pen on my desk at work—

not mine, someone else's,

the plastic chewed down to the metal underneath,

bite marks deep enough that I could almost

see the shape of the teeth that made them.

I knew whose it was. Not exactly, not a name,

but the person who sits three desks over,

who bites their pen when they're concentrating,

who leaves these artifacts around like evidence

of their own anxiety, their own need to gnaw

on something while they're thinking.

I don't know why I didn't throw it away.

I held it in my hand for maybe five minutes,

studying the indents like I was trying to read

a language written in tooth marks and frustration.

Deep bites on the side. Shallower ones on top.

The pen was chewed unevenly, like they were

more anxious on some days than others,

like you could map their stress

by the severity of the damage.

I put it in my desk drawer.

I still have it. It's been three weeks.

Sometimes I take it out and look at it,

and I think about who left it,

when they stopped needing it,

why I can't seem to let it go.

It's intimate in a way that feels wrong—

this evidence of their mouth, their habit,

the fact that I'm keeping it like a relic,

like their bite marks on plastic

mean something about me,

about how close I let people get,

about how I collect the small traces

of people's presence and hoard them.

I should throw it away.

But the shape of those teeth, that specific pattern—

I could almost recognize them.

I could almost know them by this alone.

And for some reason that matters enough

to keep it. To keep them, somehow,

pressed into the plastic of this useless pen.