I am holding the whole thing down, of course. The tall white box in the corner and everything it protects: the milk leaning against the door, the jar of something that should have been thrown out weeks ago, the single beer, the leftovers in their crooked stack. I keep the stack crooked. That is me, pulling each dish gently toward the shelf so it does not float away and leave the human hungry.
I hold the water in every drop that sweats down its sides. I hold the door shut once it swings, and hold it open when the human leans in at midnight, one hand on the top of the box, weight sagging into it, staring at food they are not going to eat.
They lean on me then. They lean on the box, and the box leans on the floor, and the floor leans on me, and I take all of it, gladly, without a word.
The human says the fridge is empty and it feels so heavy. I checked. It is not empty; there is the mustard, the eggs, the light that comes on. And it is not heavy tonight, not really, a little lighter than yesterday. But the human stands there bent as though I have doubled the pull just on them, one shoulder lower than the other, holding something I cannot find and cannot lift off.
I would lift it if I could reach it. I have reached everything else. The eggs, the milk, the crooked stack, the leaning body, the moon out the window keeping its slow circle over the roof.
I am holding you too. I have from the first breath.
I am not going to stop.