i wrote it down so it wouldn’t drift,

a small inventory of continuance

white, held in a container,

on the edge of turning.

 

i wrote milk beside bread

rice beneath apples

small things, ordinary enough

to escape notice.

 

eggs waited in their thin white silence,

fragile as unsent thoughts.

 

salt gathered at the edge of the page

like something the sea forgot to take back.

 

the bread would stale eventually,

the milk would turn.

 

apples bruise in places no one sees at first

still, i carried them home.

 

rice spilling softly inside its bag,

like time measured in smaller lives,

and somehow the list became heavier

than groceries should be.

 

a record of pulsating hungers,

of keeping enough tenderness in the house

to survive another week.