Runner
I keep refreshing the page,
a priest lighting candles,
holding my breath like the next
flick of wrist might mean something.
Her name is gone from my inbox,
but I still comb the comment fields,
archive tags, shaky alt accounts
we never talked about.
It’s stupid, this new religion:
hitting reload, rereading typos,
tugging old scabs just to feel the sting.
I can’t believe I keep doing this.
I swore I wouldn’t chase her.
Though I think she'd like that,
I meant it
the way a knife means
to stay in its drawer.
It was the right choice.
Somewhere she’s smiling, I think—
the kind of thin-lipped, smug faced
thing I always liked about her—
she wanted nothing more than someone
obsessed with her character.
So here I am running my hands
across the screen—
searching pixel-by-pixel in the static
for a shape that used to know me.
Copyright © Jaymee Thomas | Year Posted 2025
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