One Voicemail

That red notification stays,
it’s exactly like living with someone
who completely cut off all speech
but refuses ever to pack up and leave.

Eventually
I stop seeing it.

Well, not exactly.

More like the brown stain
beside the light switch
I stopped trying to scrub off
sometime last year.

Yet,

there it is.

Red.
Tiny.
Annoying as hell.

My thumb hovers,
circles the screen once,
twice…

like I’m checking
whether something this small
can still get to me.

I could clear the voicemail.
I know it.

Deleting it would take less effort
than scraping dried toothpaste
off the bathroom mirror.
I did that this morning.

It is the kind of thoughtless chore
before the coffee brews
and I’ve figured out
what day it is.

Instead,
I move everything else.

Weather next to Photos.
Notes under Maps.

Apparently
rearranging my entire phone
is easier.

I keep making room
around the one thing
I won’t touch.

The voicemail.

It’s seventeen seconds.

Seventeen.

Almost too short.

I’ve held my breath underwater
that long, probably longer.

I hate how his voice
reaches my ear
before my brain remembers
what I’m listening to.

He says my name.

A door clicks shut.
Keys clink in his hand.

Behind all of it
a car keeps running.

I’ve listened so many times
I started building rooms
around the noises.

I don’t even know
when I started doing that.

A narrow hallway
for the clinking keys.
A cold living room
for the slamming door.
An asphalt driveway
for the engine running.

Once, right in the middle,
he takes a breath,

and I bolt upright in bed,
like an absolute fool,

convinced
he is finally going to say
whatever it is
I’ve been waiting to hear.

I still don’t know
what I’m expecting.

Weird how a voicemail
can end before
you’re finished with it.

Then the click.

Small.
Clean.

Too polite.

Then that woman comes on
asking if I want
to delete it.

Her voice is so fucking considerate.

I hate her
for making it sound
so easy.

Swipe.
Tap.

Gone.

Apparently
people can fit inside buttons now.

I honestly have no clue.

I tell people
I never listen to it anymore.

And it’s true that weeks,
sometimes months,
pass without me hitting the icon.

That has to count
for something, right?

Maybe I’m getting better.

Maybe not so much.

Then, on a random Tuesday,
I am frozen in aisle four
clutching a bottle of orange juice,

and out of nowhere
I need to hear
exactly how he said
my name.

I need it.

The shopping cart is abandoned
somewhere between the milk jugs
and the oats.

Glass pressed hard
against my jaw.

There he is.

I let myself play it once.

Twice would be pathetic.

I’m aware.

So I wait three minutes
and pretend that makes
some kind of difference.

It’s still there tonight.

The red dot.

My battery is at twelve percent
and the crack across the bottom
has made it almost
to the other side of the screen.

I really should
replace this phone.

I can’t.

I charge it every night.

Every fucking night.

Because somewhere inside this old phone
those seventeen seconds
are still beating

and apparently
I’ve decided

if the battery dies
he does too.

© Wildwood Writer