Where I Can Feel It

My thumb found my pulse

while my boss was talking about

something difficult, something

that required my attention,

and instead I was counting.

Seventy-eight, seventy-nine,

eighty. The soft part of my wrist

where you can see the blue vein

running close to the surface,

where everything's just barely

under the skin. I was supposed

to be listening. I was listening.

But my thumb was keeping time

with my heart, feeling it pulse

underneath, that steady

knock-knock-knock against

the thin skin. My thumb pressed

there like it was trying to hold

something in. The boss kept

talking. I kept counting.

My heart racing with whatever

fear or stress was moving through me,

and I was catching it

in real time, feeling the proof

of it on my wrist. Eighty-five,

eighty-six. The vein

visible and blue and working

so hard to keep me alive

while I'm sitting in a meeting

not paying attention to the words,

just paying attention to the beat,

the steady proof that I'm

still here, still going, still

my body running its own

small war underneath the skin.

When my boss asked me

something, I had to let go.

Had to put my hand back down

and pretend I'd been present.

But I already knew the answer.

My heart knew. My pulse

knew. And now I can't

stop feeling it. Now every

quiet moment, my thumb

finds that place and counts,

counts, counts, like there's

something it's trying to

prove.