The Decay

i.

We found each other like hope
on the coldest, darkest day of January.
You took my hands, eyes soft like the clouds
before rain and promised me a whole life
that was not yours to give.

No one had taught you
about borrowed forevers.
No one had taught me about people
like you who looked like homes
but were quicksand instead.

ii.

This is how we ended:
I stopped talking
but you didn’t notice
because you stopped listening
long ago.

iii.

People fall in such deep, dark love
with each other that they forget
that love is a perishable thing.

They hold on long past the love growing bad
until one of them finally catches scent
of the decay