The Grocery Store

I was standing in front of the cereal boxes

for three minutes

and I wasn't thinking about anything.

That's the part that scared me.

My body was there.

My feet on the linoleum.

My eyes looking at the colors—

the reds and yellows blurring

into something abstract.

But I wasn't present.

I was somewhere else

or nowhere at all,

and I didn't notice

until someone pushed past me

and I jumped,

my heart suddenly real again,

my breath suddenly mine.

Sorry, they said.

Sorry, I said back.

But I was shocked.

I was shocked

that I could be standing

and breathing

and not be present for any of it,

that I could be a body

without being in it,

that thinking and being

could be so separate,

so distant,

that I could lose hours

or seconds

or my entire life

standing in a grocery store

not thinking

about anything

at all.