the simplicity of the silence,
the holy matrimony of the moon and emptiness,
the unforgiving nature of all the broken pieces -
the noiseless abandonment.
do you feel it?

my mother tells me to stop believing so much in the things i cannot see,
so i ask why she believes in my father
and she is silent.
she stopped believing long ago but hasn’t found the strength to claim the brokenness inside her.
the sadness hangs in the air.
do you feel it?

my teacher asks me about fiction and fact and i say
no one is safe either way,
fairytales don’t always have happy endings.
the disappointment lingers in the room for a long while.
can you feel it?

the way things whither away with the passage of time,
the gradual but constant erosion of once important things
like memory and bank accounts and love.
the theory of decay.
do you feel it?
of course not.

the silence forgets that it knows how to speak
so it doesn’t.
my father forgets that he knows how to love
so he doesn’t.
the author forgets how to rewrite the narrative
and so she doesn’t.

the theory of decay.
do you feel it?
because I do.