Discharge Papers

The kitchen light is a cruel, buzzing white.

I’m hunting for scissors in the back of a drawer

while the smell of the hallway and the long, sterile night

still clings to the coat I dropped on the floor.

This plastic loop is a stubborn, clear tooth

clamping the skin where the pulse likes to run.

It’s the only thing left of a terrible truth,

a record of everything we haven't done.

The snap-fastener digs its sharp, jagged edge

into the tendon as I pull and I twist.

I’m standing alone on the bathroom ledge

with a ghost of a debt still tied to my wrist.