Unnoticed

The desk is quiet around me.

The sandwich is half-wrapped in foil,

the way I left it,

the way it stays.

Nobody walks past.

Nobody stops to ask

what I'm eating,

where I got it,

if I want to join them

in the break room

where people eat in groups

and it matters.

I eat here because

I can't perform hunger.

I can't make it look casual,

the way other people do,

sitting across from someone,

managing both the food

and the conversation,

pretending they're equally important.

Here, the sandwich is everything.

The quiet is everything.

The fact that nobody sees

makes it possible

to just consume

without being consumed

by the need to be seen

consuming.

I finish half of it.

The foil crinkles when I rewrap it.

The sound is small

but it's the loudest thing

in this corner of the office.

When I'm done, I'll throw away the wrapper.

I'll return to my desk as if I haven't been

sitting at my desk all along.

I'll pretend the lunch break was

an interruption instead of

the only time I get

to be alone with something

that needs me

and asks nothing

but to be eaten.

The sandwich is still good.

The quiet is still here.

And nobody knows

that this is how I prefer it—

unseen, unhurried,

just me and the food

and the knowledge that

some people are meant to eat

in the open

and some of us are meant to eat

like we're stealing,

like it's a small transgression

to need to be alone

with our hunger.