Lynn

2023-05-12 09:32 pm

Sitting outside the shop on a cloudy May afternoon, my hand scrawls on the back of a receipt
a list of the aspects of myself:

- the moles in morse code down the side of my face ($4.99)
- the scars on my leg in bumpy braille ($12.76)
- the skin covering my knuckles, shining where it has split so many times over ($29.97, sale price)
- the soul filled with self-loathing, boiling, bubbling over the rim ($10.19)
- my spine, doubled over and bent backward ($17.22, CLEARANCE)
- the effort I put into eject all but the smallest parts of myself
as a collection of trinkets, an amalgamation of dust bunnies ($0.99)

I must have picked these up, absentmindedly, through my time in the shop. Where can I put these back? I didn't want them. Why did I pay for them, pulling out my wallet in a daze? I never knew they existed. I must have entered a girl and left a much older woman. How long was I standing underneath the humming lights?

I crumple up the scratch paper and toss it in the bin as the sun waves from the overcast.