The porch light didn’t die. We just stopped replacing it. There’s a difference. You said it felt like the house was giving up. I said houses don’t give up, people do. You went quiet after that. The Safeway parking lot still smells like fryer oil and wet cardboard. I stood there last week longer than I needed to. Not because of you. Because it was cold and I deserved it. You used to lean against the cart return like it was a balcony in some European film and talk about running away. I’d calculate rent in three cities while you described the color of the sky we’d have somewhere else. You said I treat love like a systems problem. You weren’t wrong. I was trying to debug us while you were trying to feel us. Winter in the park— not poetic, just damp. Your hands always colder than mine. You said I hold on like I’m afraid of dropping something expensive. I said I don’t like breaking things I can’t rebuild. The Polaroid isn’t tragic. It’s worse than that. It’s normal. Two idiots mid-laugh. No foreshadowing. No omen in the clouds. I left the burned CD in your car because I didn’t trust myself to not play it again. Track three always skipped— we said it gave it character. We called every flaw “character” until it was just neglect. My heater’s broken now. I drive with gloves on. It feels proportional. We didn’t explode. There was no betrayal, no villain. Just two people who got tired of reaching first. You wanted heat. I wanted control. Both of us called it safety. I keep picking at the popcorn ceiling in this apartment that isn’t ours. It flakes off in soft white dust. There’s nothing under it. Just drywall. I don’t think we stopped loving each other. I think we stopped believing it would compound. That’s the part I don’t say out loud.
