Her skin is a sheet of uncreased paper

Her skin is a sheet of uncreased paper,

while I’m fading like a candle vapor.

She holds that glass with a steady hand

like she’s never had to work the land.

Or scrub the grout on a Friday night

until the knuckles go dead and white.

The phone screen glows a sickly blue

on the crumbs of a toast I’m chewing through.

I hate the way her eyes stay clear.

I hate the way I’m standing here,

thirty-two and feeling ten years late,

licking the salt off a chipped dinner plate.