What I Can't Catch

I watched them read the callback list

and not see their name.

Watched their face go from hopeful

to something else—

a kind of dimming,

like a light someone had switched off

in their chest.

They glanced back at me.

That was the worst part.

That glance.

Like they were checking

if I had seen them fail,

if I was disappointed too,

if I was doing the math

on what this meant.

I was doing the math.

But not the kind they were thinking.

I was calculating

how much I couldn't fix this,

how my hands were useless,

how the only thing I could do

was stand there

and witness

their small, specific heartbreak.

They turned away.

I didn't call out.

There was nothing to catch,

nothing to say.

Just the slump of their shoulders

walking toward me,

and my arms staying at my sides

like they had never learned

to hold anything.