Evidence

The waiting room smelled like

other people's time, and I

was adding to it—sweat pooling

where my back met the plastic chair.

Across from me, a woman kept glancing over.

Not at my face.

At the dark patches spreading

like continents across my shirt,

like I was melting into

public view.

I couldn't help it.

My body was announcing

something I wasn't ready to admit—

that I was terrified,

that I couldn't sit still,

that I was taking up too much

of the room's attention just

by existing in it.

She looked away.

She looked back.

There was something almost

kind in the looking,

like she recognized it,

like she'd been the wet-backed person

in a chair once too.

When they called my number

I stood and my shirt

made a sound like adhesive

releasing, like something

that had been stuck

was finally coming free.

The back of the chair

held my shape in darkness.

She was looking at it now,

at the print I'd left behind,

the evidence of my body

unable to keep itself

private, and I was walking

toward the door

thinking about how some things

you can't control, how some

things just come out

no matter how still you try

to be, and maybe that's