Playback

Red light blinks like a warning,

my voice crawls out rough,

a stranger caught mid-word,

stuttering on the edge of my skin.

The crack in my throat, the hitch,

a tremble I didn’t know I owned.

Not the voice I hear,

but the one everyone else keeps.

I rewind,

search for the thread I lost,

a sound that feels like me,

but never will again.