Static

I am thirty-two in this pharmacy aisle,

but in your eyes, I am still the wreck

who couldn't hold a stapler without shaking,

who let the phone ring until it became a physical weight.

The fluorescent hum reflects in your lenses,

two bright, buzzing rectangles obscuring your pupils.

You speak with a soft, rounded caution,

as if my skin were still made of wet tissue,

as if I might collapse right here next to the generic aspirin.

You are holding a version of me that died in a breakroom,

and I have no way to tell you she’s buried,

not when you’re looking for the ghost

behind every word I say.