The Artifact in the Corner

The bass is a headache behind my eyes,

a rhythmic thumping through the floorboards here.

A girl in a crop top—about the size

of my younger sister—asks me, loud and clear,

if I know where the secret bathroom is.

She calls me "sir" with such a heavy weight

of actual respect, it feels like his—

my father's voice—coming to fix my fate.

I look down at the marble on the bar.

The fluorescent veins are shivering in the stone.

I remember the original song, before the scar

of this remix. I’m standing here alone

in a room of people who don't have to ache

when they wake up. I finish my drink and go,

feeling the way a glass is bound to break

if you hold it too long or move too slow.