This morning,
my chest carried flu, cough, and nausea,
medicine swallowed like small anchors.
Beside me, another voice spoke of a flu too —
perhaps the hospital air still lingered in our lungs.
Bus 28 hummed its usual song.
A man rose before me,
my step brushed against a stranger’s shoes,
her hand struck my bag, sharp and wordless.
The toilet door banged shut against silence,
stairs and lifts carried me toward
the waiting place of routine.
At work,
I saw embraces not mine to claim:
two figures folded into each other,
a kiss, a warmth.
A morning greeting brushed my ears,
my reply floated without eyes meeting.
Another greeting I gave,
and another gaze recorded my absence
into the cold lens of a phone.
No words followed.
Only a record,
and the quiet ache of being noted
but not spoken to.
And so the day begins:
with illness,
with small collisions,
with gestures both warm and distant.
I breathe through it —
fragile, yet still walking.
