Two missed calls.
There is a little message that blinks
On the screen of my phone.
Two missed calls.
It threw a milky glow upon the room
All night last night,
Flaring and fading.
I'd only have to touch it to make it stop.
Two missed calls
From the night my life changed
Again.
From the time I held my phone and
Stared
Down at your name as it rang
And rang
And rang
Transfixed.
Petrified.
I wonder what they saw-
My friends, who watched the color drain
From my cheeks,
Watched my gaze latch onto that little screen
As if it were the barrel of a gun.
They stopped talking.
They stopped asking if I was okay, too,
After a moment,
And there we all were
Frozen
Them in uncertainty
Me in shock and fear
And the only sound in the entire world was that phone
Buzzing.
It rang in my hands
And then stopped.
And then instantly began again,
Your picture glowing on its black surface.
And I stared at it.
I felt dizzy.
I felt...cold.
As if I was floating just a little bit
Above and behind my own body
And the air could get through me
To all the little places that air
Is never supposed to touch
And I was so
Cold.
Two missed calls
Before I finally scrambled away,
Locked myself in the bathroom and answered.
My voice
Bounced off the tiles
And made me flinch.
It was
Flat
And quiet,
But my shaking hands did not make it quiver as well.
Your voice hit me like a freight train
And spattered my soul upon the softly lit walls
And I answered you with short, monotone whispers
Staring at my own black eyes in the mirror
Trying to find a person inside them,
But I couldn't.
For that moment
I was a shell
Staring at an empty reflection.
I stared and she stared and even together
We couldn't add up to anything close to alive.
It was like being turned to stone,
Like being flash frozen.
Like already being dead and feeling your limbs cool and stiffen.
As you spoke
I got more
And more
And more
Still
Until only my eyes and lips moved
In the mirror.
My breaths were shallow
Because my lungs were paralyzed-
Stuck
At the size they'd been
When you dialed my number.
You
You
You
It echoed off the walls when I hung up.
You
You
You
You
You
And if I'd been able to
Maybe I'd have cried,
Or smiled,
Or gotten sick or collapsed.
But instead I stared at my own blank,
Smooth,
Paralyzed face in somebody else's bathroom mirror,
Tried to make my eyes blink.
Tried to make my chest rise and fall.
Tried to arrange these
Suddenly unfamiliar features
Into something that wouldn't terrify the people
Waiting for me in the living room.
Waiting to care.
Waiting to comfort.
Waiting to fail.
You
You
You
Are the only thing that can reach inside of me.
You
You
You
You
You
I heard it, tinny and layered. It filled that little room
With its smartly matched sink and tiles
And its soothing light gold walls.
It painted everything
A corroded white,
Powdery and metallic tasting,
And the ceiling
Bent.
And I
Stared at my black eyes in the mirror,
Too numb to reach the fear
Or the hope
That I knew was coursing through my veins.
Since that night,
Those two missed calls
Have remained missed.
Remained a little reminder
To throw patterns on my walls in the middle of the night.
I can't
Delete them.
I can't
Resolve them...
They changed my life.
They stay.