Art of Avoidance

We collect unresolved arguments, like spare buttons in a jar— each one waiting for its moment that never arrives. Yesterday's dishes grow cultures in the sink while we pretend not to notice, like the way we ignore how your toothbrush stays dry for days. Remember how we'd marathon films all night? Now the TV stays dark and cold; our watchlist growing longer and longer— a queue of stories we'll never finish. The grocery list on the fridge yellows at its edges: takeout numbers and Netflix passwords, four years of shared logins we'll have to untangle. Our lease renewal sits unopened— a time bomb on the counter— while we both scroll apartments in separate browser windows. We've mastered the art of "maybe next year" and "we'll see," both too kind or too coward to say what our silence already knows. -