The Evidence You Almost Erase

I was about to wipe the mirror clean

when I saw my own hands staring back—

five ghosts pressed into the steam.

Yesterday's shower, the heat rising,

my palms flat against the glass

like I was trying to push through to somewhere else.

The cloth was already in my hand.

I'd grabbed it automatically, the way you do

when someone's coming over

and the house needs to look like

nobody actually lives here.

But I stopped.

Stood there in the bathroom light,

watching the smudges start to fade on their own,

the condensation dying back to nothing,

and I thought: let them stay.

Let someone see that I was here,

that my hands are real,

that I pressed myself against something solid

just to feel the cold of it.

I put the cloth down.

Left the marks.