What I Found Looking for Band-Aids

The mirror opens to a small pharmacy of evidence.

Three bottles of anxiety in different colors.

A prescription from 2019 still sitting on the shelf—

expired, but not thrown away.

Someone is still believing in its power

even though the date has passed.

I understand this kind of hoarding.

The way you keep the thing that stopped working

because it used to work, and maybe

if you keep it long enough, it will again.

The sleeping pills are in the back.

The migraine medication has a thumbprint on the label

from so many mornings reaching for relief.

This is how they survive. Not with strength,

but with a cabinet full of small promises

they've learned not to break.

I find the band-aids and close the door quietly,

as if I hadn't just read their entire history

in the arrangement of plastic bottles and faded dates.