I step into the lobby of this afternoon, skin already over-capacity Your grin dangles on the coat rack, I snag it, pretend it’s custom fit The elevator smells like burnt film stock and somebody’s incense ambitions I’m dripping with secondhand moods before the doors even close I keep a ledger: who I felt like, how long it lasted, interest rates on borrowed nerve The numbers rewrite themselves every time someone laughs too loudly Am I a person or an open-source costume You scroll through me, click-drag a personality, press install The interface jitters, I stutter in seven fonts at once If I hit the emergency reboot, will anything load except a holding pattern The crowd outside is a buffet of emotional leftovers I sample indignation, drizzle on a light fear vinaigrette, chase it with your excitement shot A traffic light coughs up déjà vu, pedestrians wobble like inflatable sky dancers I lose track of which laugh originally belonged to me, or if any ever did My lung capacity is now measured in unsolicited feelings per minute Someone sneezes regret down the block, I’m already wearing it like cologne City dissolves into hand-drawn storyboards, margins scribbled by a sleep deprived cartoonist I trade my face for an unlicensed emoji, then swap that for a vacant lot The vacant lot hums (You’re still renting every heartbeat on credit) I shrug, because shrugging is free, then tip the lot for its honesty The costume crashes, I blue-screen in public Passers-by knit new expressions for me out of gossip and caffeine Once again I’m up and running, patched with duct-taped goodwill Is this survival, performance art, or a glitch tourism visa I peel off tonight’s emotions, hang them beside the sink Mirror refuses loyalty, cycling through stranger after stranger Underneath, there’s a pulsing blank, warm, undefined, mercifully silent I practice breathing without subtitles, just to see if the lungs sign my name
