Pharmacy Light

The clock on the wall says it’s two in the morning.

I’m waiting for pills in a plastic white chair.

The overhead tubes have a sickening hum

that rattles the quiet and thins out the air.

In the plexiglass shield at the counter's edge,

I see my own throat in the clinical glare.

The skin is so pale it looks almost like glass,

revealing the hollows and secrets kept there.

My collarbone sits like a shallow stone bowl

with a blue vein that pulses, steady and thin.

It’s a fragile architecture, holding the weight

of whatever is trying to break through the skin.