The bridge coughs rust. The river answers in algae and gasoline
a love affair of decay. We meet here, where concrete
blooms its first crack, where pigeons nest in the ribs
of a billboard screaming SALE.

I.
Your laugh is a jackhammer’s stutter.
I collect its echoes in a coffee cup and
drink them cold. The diner’s neon flickers:
EAT becomes ATE becomes Ache.
We are fluent in ruin.

II.
Your apartment: a museum of half-lives.
A TV hums the 2 a.m. psalm of static.
The fridge groans its light a jaundiced eye.
You peel an orange on the windowsill;
The peel curls like a suicide note.

III.
We fuck in the language of eviction notices.
Tenant, you gasp. Landlord, I growl.
The mattress sags its verdict.
Afterward, you chain-smoke dawns,
each exhale a gray flag of surrender.

IV.
The city unlearns itself nightly.
A parking lot swallows a library.
A streetlamp forgets its own light.
You whisper, Stay, as a wrecking ball
swings its first hymn.

Epilogue:
They’ll build a sushi place where we once bled.
The chef will rinse the rice, blissfully unaware
of how your teeth left constellations on my neck
or how the river, still thick with our shadows,
refuses to forget.