Clock-in hum and neon buzz, coffee ghosts in paper cups. Floor is quiet, screens are not, someone’s overtime, someone’s cut. On the edge of this cheap desk by a stack of unsigned forms, a little plastic unicorn glows in pale fluorescent storms. You gave it with your sticky hands, smiling wide, “So you’re not alone.” I said, “I’ll bring it back one day” – now it’s here more than I’m home. I see your colors in its paint, chipped horn, pink tail, one missing eye. I see the years I trade for rent and all the nights I watch go by. Plastic unicorn on the nightshift, guarding what’s left of my heart. You shine in flickering office light while I fall quietly apart. You’ll be older when this ends, I’ll be more rust than bone. I sell my hours to this place and still you’re growing up alone. Printer coughs and inbox swells, someone’s crisis, someone’s sale. Every beep and blinking window chews another piece of will. In my phone: your frozen laughter, short clips, missed calls, unread pleas. “I drew something, when are you coming?” I scroll past like it’s disease. At my back: the boss’s footsteps, at my chest: a silent ache. On the desk: your unicorn, smiling like it doesn’t break. They call this “sacrifice” and “love”, like a postcard you should frame. But love feels more like slow infection when I forget my own child’s name. Plastic unicorn on the nightshift, guarding what’s left of my heart. You shine in flickering office light while I fall quietly apart. You’ll be older when this ends, I’ll be more rust than bone. I sell my hours to this place and still you’re growing up alone. One day you’ll ask me where I was when monsters lived under your bed. I’ll point to pay slips, broken teeth, to all the nights I died instead. You’ll tell me that you just wanted someone tired, but sitting near. No unicorn and no promotion ever held your shaking fear. Plastic unicorn on the nightshift, tiny witness on my shelf. You see me choose this place for you and disappear inside myself. If there’s a god in all this noise, he’s hiding in your cardboard crown. I walk through hell to build you peace and burn my way out of your town. Plastic unicorn on the nightshift, little ghost of what I missed. If I make it through these endless weeks, will there be anything of me left to lift?
