Capacity

The bass is a hammer against the drywall,

shaking the dust from the basement beams.

I am standing by the cooler in the back,

watching the hoodies drift like a school of fish,

their skin still tight and their voices too loud.

I catch my face in the dark of a window,

lit by the blue of a kid's phone screen nearby.

I see the deep canyons carved into my eyes,

a topography of Mondays and bad decisions

that nobody in this room has learned to read yet.

My knees are a clock ticking toward the door.

I am checking the exits, looking for a chair,

while they lean into the noise like it's oxygen.

I am the only one here who knows exactly

how much this silence is going to cost tomorrow.