Inventory

I woke up and stretched the way I do

and something in my spine made a sound

like a door closing, like something settling

into a place it wasn't supposed to be.

Not painful. Just loud. Just there.

The cold of the sheets underneath me,

the gray morning light through the blinds,

the specific way the world looks

before anyone else is awake,

and that sound. My back keeping score.

Keeping a record of all the years

I spent hunched over a desk,

all the nights I fell asleep in positions

that weren't good for me,

all the times I ignored the small aches

until they became something else.

The sound is evidence. Proof

that something is breaking down,

something I can't fix by stretching,

something that will only get worse

and worse until I'm the kind of person

who has to be careful, who can't

just move the way I move now.

I stretched again to hear it again.

To confirm that I heard it.

To confirm that my body is already

betraying me, already keeping score,

already making sure I know

that nothing stays the way it was.