The Question

The coffee was burning hot

and I held it in shaking hands,

which made the coffee shake too,

and they could see it—

that I was not prepared,

that I was barely there.

The question came. My voice

was not my voice,

but someone trapped inside

trying to get out through words

that made no sense.

I stammered through it.

The interviewer's face changed.

The pen went still.

I kept talking, kept filling

the silence with my broken explanation,

made it worse, made it clear

that I was not the one

they wanted, that I was barely

the one in the room.

When they said thank you,

I already knew:

I was already gone,

already the person

who couldn't.

Two years and I still hear it—

my voice, wrong and shaking,

the coffee cup trembling,

the face of someone realizing

I was a mistake.