The Catalog and the Weight

A day spent counting what I already have, and it does not help.

The wrap on my palm is three days old now. I should change it but changing it means looking, and looking means admitting this happened on my own ground, in my own car, on a route I have run a hundred times. No one else is to blame. That should feel clean but it feels like something heavier instead.

Eight scorpions. I labeled each tub twice. Checked the UV response twice. Sat on the kitchen floor for a while just listening to them move. That sounds like something a person who has things figured out would do. It was not calm. It was the closest I could get to not being anywhere else.

I drafted a message to the buyer about the permit timeline. Deleted it. Drafted it again. Deleted it. There is a version where I sound professional and a version where I sound like I am justifying myself to someone who does not care about the justification, just the product. Both versions feel like handing someone a weapon.

I keep thinking about the unanswered call. Not because I regret it. Because I want to know if I could have made it sound casual. I want to know if there is a version of me that does not carry every unanswered thing like a test I am still taking.