My loneliness had teeth, no eyes, and legs
that walked me back to bed at all hours of the day.
The room spun only when I was conscious.
Exhaustion replaced all other natural desires
and it was the best I had ever looked.
The first medication was wrong, the second and third, too.
The days were a shrinking room,
and I had eaten all of the doors.
So I watched Youtube videos where a man
I didn’t know pretended to nurse me back to health
through my phone. I can’t remember the circumstances
of the discovery, only that the videos found me
when I needed them to. A fraud, a two-timer,
I went on dates where I couldn’t make eye contact,
then went home to the arms of my laptop’s screen.
Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.
You’ll be better before you know it.
A hand reached out holding a spoonful of chicken soup
and I opened my mouth. His fingers scratched
the top of the camera and I felt it on my head.
He rubbed my shoulders and cleared the tears
forming in the pockets of my eyelids.
How did he know I was crying?
I watched the videos like porn but without shame.
What we did here in the bedroom was
nobody’s business but ours. No one would think to ask,
so I had nothing to tell.
He would fix me before anyone knew I was dead.
He would keep me until it was safe to send me off,
until I could reenter the world and want to stay there

Danielle Shorr is a professor of creative writing at Chapman University. Winner of the Touchstone Literary Magazine Debut Prize in Nonfiction, a finalist for the Diana Woods Memorial Prize in Creative Non-fiction, and nominee for The Pushcart Prize 2022 & 2023, and the Best of the Net 2022 & 2023, her work has appeared in The Florida Review, Driftwood Press, The New Orleans Review, and others. Find her at: @danielleshorr.