I Put the Milk in the Pantry

Dear Delyara, I didn’t notice for a full minute. I had unpacked the groceries, put away the cereal, the crackers, the canned soup, and apparently the milk too. Into the pantry. Beside the pasta. Like my brain had simply run out of clean wiring and started filing things by shape instead of sense. When I saw it sitting there, I laughed once. Then I felt something colder than laughter. Because it wasn’t about the milk. It was about how crowded my mind has become. How thin the margin is between “managing” and “malfunctioning.” How often I keep going anyway because there is no elegant alternative. I put the milk in the fridge. Then I stood there staring at the pantry shelf like it had exposed me.