No matter what I do, the dust keeps building and
building, the unwelcome gray blanket keeping my bookshelves
warm and consoling my phone. It mingles drunkenly
with the buttons on my blender and gives the electrons on my TV screen
a date to write home about. It cuddles up to my mascara
and I watch, (enviously), as it beds down
in the stripes of my tiger figurine.
Its tiny, constantly increasing fragments
dull the sheen of your picture,
the one sitting on my dresser, the one with me in it,
the only one I have of you smiling. The dust is
covering your contrived smile and stifling your screaming silence.

For a moment I pause, holding the picture, and seeing it through the film, I smile.

Then I bring the photo close to my mouth and blow away the dust, accidentally swallow a bit, and cough.

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