a poem by Roger B. Rueda
I.
The mug sits at the edge
like a mouth that almost spoke.
Brown ring scabbed around the rim—
not sipped, not kissed,
just the heat leaking out slowly,
like a man who said
I’ll be right back
and meant it
only in the way knives mean hunger.
II.
The cookies—
small golden things,
slightly cracked like the hands
that baked them—
wait.
They wait the way my mother waited
for apologies that never came,
the way I once waited for a hand
to reach for me in the dark
and found only the air,
stupid with silence.
III.
The flies hover but do not land.
Even they know this isn’t death yet—
just its rehearsal.
Just the moment before rot
puts on its wedding dress
and walks down the aisle
to marry time.
IV.
What is more loyal than uneaten food?
More tragic than a sweetness
denied its ruin?
V.
I stand there,
or someone does—
someone like me,
someone tired of metaphors
and men
who forget to finish
what they start.
I reach for the mug.
It’s cold now.
It tastes like everything
I meant to say.
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