The room is still there, though the house forgets its name.
The walls have begun to breathe again
soft exhalations of rosewater and ash.
No one remembers who first laid down the sheets,
only that they remain unwrinkled,
smelling faintly of fever and honey.
The lovers do not age.
They do not speak.
Their language is older than sound,
older than breath.
Their bodies are relics in motion,
moving as roots do in soil,
slow and entwined,
eternal
never needing to surface.
Outside the windowless house,
new roads have eaten the gardens,
cities have risen and collapsed,
wars fought for less than the silence they share.
Still, no one knocks.
A girl once ran her fingers along the lock
and forgot her own name.
A priest walked past with salt on his tongue
and swallowed it without prayer.
Only the wind returns,
curious and uninvited.
Inside,
the bed has grown antlers.
The ceiling drips colorless rain.
A vine pulses through the mattress like a second heartbeat.
The lovers, blind as moonless sky,
continue–slow, sacred, certain.
No hunger. No ******.
Only the eternity of touch.
Some say the house is a mouth now,
that when you stand too near,
it whispers your deepest ache
and waits to be fed.
And somewhere, beyond time,
a third body shifts beneath the covers.
It was not invited.
It was always meant to arrive.
You.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
June 2025
They Never Stopped Loving