Dust Rings

The lamp fell and when I turned on the light

I saw the water glasses, empty for days,

the rings underneath them where the water

had evaporated, leaving behind the dust.

I saw the pill bottle I don't recognize,

the prescription label so faded I can't read

whose name it has or what it was for.

I saw the receipt from somewhere, from something,

from a time I don't remember purchasing.

I saw the hair ties I've lost, the ones

I thought were gone but were just hiding here,

accumulating with everything else on this table.

I saw the book I never opened, the one

that came with good intentions and stayed

with dust. I saw all of this at once

and I understood what it meant: this is what

I keep where I sleep, this is what I've been

building up in the dark, this inventory

of neglect and forgetting and small betrayals

of the person I meant to be. The table

is a record. The dust rings are dates.

The pill bottle is a question I don't have

the answer to. The receipt is a lie

I'm still telling myself about where I was

and what I needed. And the book is hope,

still here, still waiting, still unread.