What Google Knows

The pain started small.

Just a twinge.

The kind you ignore for a week.

Then I typed it in.

Two words into the search bar.

Blue hyperlinks appeared.

I should have stopped at the first result.

Should have closed the tab.

Should have convinced myself it was nothing.

Instead I clicked.

Then clicked again.

The links turned purple as I read,

as I learned words I didn't know

I needed to know,

words that came with percentages,

with survival rates,

with the clinical certainty

of my own hands

typing the query

that would find the worst thing

I could imagine.

Now I can't unread it.

The words are still there.

The medical jargon repeating itself

in my head,

the statistics floating in the background,

the way the cursor moved

from result to result,

the way my eyes scanned the text,

searching for my own symptoms

in the description of something

I can't stop thinking about.

This is what Google knows:

that you'll search for your own death

at 2 AM.

That you'll click on every link.

That you'll convince yourself

the twinge means everything.

And now I'm here,

still feeling the twinge,

still unable to convince myself

it's nothing,

because I've already read

what it could be,

and the internet doesn't forget,

and neither does the body,

and the two of them together

are enough to keep me awake

through another night

of not knowing

if I should be afraid.