Final Walk-Through

The movers left the door propped open

and I walked every room once more

the way you do when you're checking

for something you can't name yet.

Behind the radiator, caught

against the baseboard like it had been

waiting three years for me to remember:

a receipt.

Milk. Instant noodles. One fancy candle

that cost more than I had—

the week I moved in, when I was

trying to make the place feel chosen.

I stood there in the empty room

holding it under the window light.

The total circled in someone else's pen,

some cashier's habit or mistake,

a loop around a number

that meant something once.

I couldn't tell you

what I thought I'd built here

but the floor looked different bare.

Lighter, somehow.

Like it had never asked me to stay.