The boy is sick and he enters the girl’s room. 

She watches his sick hand clench the doorknob, 

His sick feet cling to the floorboards,

His sick nose graze the spines of her books as he selects one.

She casts a small shadow over his sick back. 

Her obsessive mind keeps count

Of everything he’s touched. 

She can’t see what book he’s chosen, because he’s clutching it beneath his shirt 

To his sick chest,

Like a mother swaddling a baby. 

He leaves a trail of sick behind him like dust,

The girl kneels in her closet, trapping the sick air outside,

She holds her breath,

Nothing in, nothing out. 

But what about the bacteria in her saliva? 

A breeding ground.

But what about the bacteria in her clenching stomach?

What is good and what is bad?

Bacteria. 

All invisible things are bad. 

She washes her hands until they bleed and the boy still has her book. 

Breathe in, breathe out:

Bacteria.