we were talking, but saying nothing
smoke curled from the mouth
of another bad evening,
and there they were again—
grown people with children’s hearts,
poking wounds with dirty fingers
just to watch somebody yell louder.
talking,saying nothing, always interrupting.
they call it, “just visiting,”
“just remembering old times,”
where a son once worked before
but old times were a house fire
and they keep bringing gasoline
like party favors.
there’s always one in the room
who feeds on it—
the raised voice,
a woman staring through the wind shield
trying not to come apart
while the psychopaths grin
behind their thick glasses.
funny thing about cruelty:
it rarely arrives drunk in an alley.
usually it wears clean clothes,
smiles politely,
asks if you’re okay
while twisting the knife slowly into your back.
they knew that place was poison.
knew every crack in the wall,
every slammed door,
every sleepless night
that came from going back there.
but they went anyway.
because some people
need storms
the way stray dogs need scraps.
and afterward they’ll shrug,
say it “just happened,”
like they slipped on fate
instead of walking there
step by careful step.
no—
that kind of damage
isn’t an accident.
it’s a choice
quietly planned,
long before the first word was ever spoken.
when one’s word
cannot stand through time against the other's.
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