Fault

The mirror caught it first—

that line where one half of my arm

stopped being what the other half was.

Not a fade. Not gradual.

A border. A fault.

One side burned and swollen,

the other pale and forgetting.

I traced it with my finger

like I could feel the exact seam

where I stopped paying attention

to my own skin.

The fluorescent light made it worse.

Made it look like proof

of something I did to myself

without meaning to.

Summer keeps score in sharp lines.

In evidence of what you didn't protect.

In the fact that your body remembers

even when you stop.