I washed my face and hair

for the first time in recent memory

time seemed to have become like a dream

and I was unsure how long was long

(hours, days? Weeks surely weren’t possible).

A woman looked back, and her face pinched

in a quizzical expression because that woman

was not me. Worn, dark circles and eye creases

like train tracks long abandoned and leading to a station long gone.

But of course that was me,

that was who I let myself become.

I was the abandoned station. Forgotten except by the younger me

who broke the windows and scribbled obscene graffiti onto it

my mirror to the world. I hated her because she

let herself become derelict, and that’s what people saw me as

and I was furious that I could fail myself so badly.

I cleaned the stranger’s face with care,

it was time to start make repairs.