The Girl in the Photo

I found her on my phone—the girl

I used to be, loose-haired and grinning

in someone's parents' kitchen with green tile

walls, a plastic cup, laughing

at something I'll never remember.

She was so completely there,

so entirely in her own body,

so utterly untethered.

I can smell that kitchen still—

the coffee maker, the specific ugly

of the tile, the way she held that cup

like it was everything.

I don't know whose house it was.

I don't know how she got home.

The photo just stops where I stopped

becoming her.

Somewhere between that moment

and this one, I learned to be small.

Learned to keep my edges.

The loose girl stayed in that green tile kitchen

while I walked out and never quite

came back.

I keep scrolling to her like evidence.

Like if I look long enough

I'll remember how she did it—

how to be so completely gone,

so entirely in the moment,

so drunk on being alive

that nothing else mattered.

But she's not coming back.

Just the smell, just the taste,

just the weight of knowing

there's someone in my phone

who doesn't live here anymore.